THE NSW Nationals have relinquished websites they had created to smear Upper Hunter by-election opponents, in a move welcomed by Member for Murray Helen Dalton.
While the Victorian Nationals continue to own a website in the name of independent Member for Mildura Ali Cupper, Mrs Dalton said The Nationals had deregistered the domain names of two Upper Hunter candidates, from the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party and Labor Party.
“Within three days of the Sunraysia Daily and Michael West Media exposing this grubby tactic, they’d deregistered the sites,” Mrs Dalton said yesterday.
“It really shows the power of regional and independent media. Good on them for calling it out.”
The Daily Matters opinion column in Saturday’s Sunraysia Daily condemned The Nationals’ tactic, labelling it “cheap and nasty, and below the behavioural standards we’d expect from a primary school child, let alone our elected leaders”.
Mrs Dalton – who made a complaint to the regulator when The Nationals registered her name – noted NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro continued to defend the website smearing tactic.
“Barilaro bragged that he pulled the pants down of his opponents, and that he will continue to use any advantage to win,” she said.
“If he wants to win elections, he really needs to focus on reversing the decline of regional NSW.”
