Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I want to bring to the chamber's attention an item that was in the Colac Herald yesterday. It alluded to the fact—I will read the press report, which said:

Political operatives are secretly campaigning for the federal seat of Corangamite online, posting political messages under fake names.

An internet user or users from Parliament House Canberra’s computer network has pretended to be at least nine different people while making pro-Labor comments online.

The comments, posted online under Colac Herald stories about Colac … Health cuts, all come from the same internet protocol address, a specific computer server’s code.

The comments all praise Labor Party policies or belittle the Liberal Party but fail to identify the writer’s political links.

The false names included a fake Colac Area Health employee and a fake Barwon Health employee.

Community lobbyist Laura Cook said she would prefer to see political staff working to fix Colac’s hospital crisis rather than “spamming” people.

“I’m [utterly] gobsmacked,” she said.

“What a complete … waste of time and resources.

“They’re best fixing it rather than spamming people—

same article—

Monash University politics lecturer Dr Zareh Ghazarian questioned the ethics of the “cynical” tactic to influence voters before the 2013 federal election.

“This is clearly concerned with trying to change grassroots voting intention,” Dr Ghazarian said.