Opposition Leader Mark Parton has been consistent on one thing. He has strenuously denied the allegation he sent a text message to a sex worker in a budget estimates hearing at the ACT's Legislative Assembly.
Mr Parton has said he believes he is the victim of harassment and a political conspiracy designed to smear him, and that he has referred that issue to the police.
But Mr Parton has offered shifting explanations for how The Canberra Times could have obtained an image showing a text message that said 'f--- my job is boring. wanna swap" with a photo taken inside an Assembly committee room during the hearing.
Even on Friday, fresh contradictions became apparent.
Asked in an appearance on ABC radio on Friday whether he had sent a text with the committee room photo to three people, Mr Parton said this was right.
The Canberra Times has been provided three screenshots by Mr Parton that show he sent the image to his wife and two other acquaintances.
But none of those messages match the precise "f--- my job is boring" language Mr Parton on Thursday said he had used.
Asked directly in a press conference whether he had sent a text that said "f--- my job is boring", Mr Parton said he had.
"Did you send a text message that said 'f--- my job is boring'," a journalist asked.
"Yes I did, yes I did," he said.
In the Friday radio interview, Mr Parton said the texts he had sent did not match the image published by The Canberra Times on Wednesday night.
"The image that I've seen on the phone of the Canberra Times journalist is not the same text message. It's just not," Mr Parton told host Ross Solly.
"So someone's doctored up something?" Solly asked.
"Yeah," Mr Parton said.
"But somebody's known that you sent a text message to someone. This is where the gap is."
"Yeah, I know."
Solly also asked how else anyone could have got the message.
"I just don't know. And we're racking our brain trying to figure that out," Mr Parton said.
Mr Parton would not be drawn on the people he had texted at his press conference.
"There's a hell of a lot of private messages that are sent from a hell of a lot of people in the context of sitting days and hearings and to be honest I'm not sure that they're really anybody's business other than the sender and the receiver," he said.
Asked by The Canberra Times on Wednesday whether either of those people could have shared the message further, Mr Parton said he did not know.
The image obtained by The Canberra Times appeared to have been reposted on a social media platform by someone who described its sender as "a well known politician client".
Under questioning at a press conference on Thursday, Mr Parton admitted to sending a text message from the committee room with the same message - "f--- my job is boring" - as the one in the obtained image.
Mr Parton had also said he had shared the photo on social media, meaning someone had the chance to download it and create a doctored image. He did not explain how someone could have known he had texted others to say he found his job boring.
The source code of Mr Parton's post of the committee room image on Lemon8 showed it had been made about 11am on Monday, after he learned of the complaint.
The Canberra Times has seen evidence that the image it obtained showing the alleged text message with the sex worker was made on Friday.
On Wednesday, Mr Parton said he had sought to post the image to Lemon8 about 8am on Monday, but said the Wi-Fi network in the Legislative Assembly sometimes meant posts could be delayed from appearing on social media sites.
He said the image had also been posted to Threads and TikTok stories on Friday but the posts had either been deleted or expired. He did not explain why any post had been deleted.
Mr Parton did not claim the image in The Canberra Times had been faked at his press conference on Thursday.
The Opposition Leader initially told The Canberra Times he learned of the complaint's contents from Speaker Jeremy Hanson on Monday.
On Friday, Mr Hanson said he did not provide a copy of the complaint to Mr Parton but had told the Opposition Leader he had received the complaint.
Mr Hanson referred the complainant to the Assembly's Commissioner for Standards, who Mr Parton said had decided not to investigate the complaint.
Asked on Friday how he had learned of the complaint, a spokesman for Mr Parton said he was shown the full details of the complaint and the anonymous email by the Liberals' Chiaka Barry, who also received the complaint as the estimates committee chair.
"The Chair of the Estimates Committee advised Mr Parton of the issue," the spokesman said.
"After a brief discussion with the Speaker, the Chair of the Estimates Committee believed that it would be beneficial for Mr Parton to see the full details of the complaint and showed Mr Parton the email at some stage after 10am."
"The anonymous complaint has come in from one of those Proton emails that you can't track," Mr Parton had earlier told ABC radio on Friday morning, showing he was familiar with its content and the anonymous email which had sent it.
