Updated
The editor of a country Victorian newspaper says political operatives in Canberra have tried to hijack community debate over the effect of funding cuts on the local hospital.
The management of the Colac Hospital, in south-western Victoria, blamed Federal Government funding cuts for a decision to close its overnight emergency care centre.
The editor of the Colac Herald, David McKenzie, says the newspaper's website received many comments from people purporting to be locals who defended the Federal Government.
But Mr McKenzie became suspicious when the comments online did not match the general community reaction.
"Then I noticed that a lot of those comments were from the same IP address," he said.
"On closer inspection they weren't real email addresses, but they were all from the same IP address from Parliament House in Canberra.
"They show up as the Department of Parliamentary Services."
He says the paper has changed its online commenting system.
"Generally you expect your politicians to identify themselves, or your political workers to identify themselves and their affiliations when they make comments," he said.
"But these people were pretending to be employees of Colac companies, general people in our community, grass roots people."
Topics: local-government, rural, print-media, rural-media, social-media, colac-3250
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