A SPAT has broken out within the Victorian Coalition over the “hypocrisy” of political parties buying up the domain-name websites of their rivals.
Leaked messages from a WhatsApp group of Coalition MPs have revealed a falling out between Liberal MP Wendy Lovell and Victorian Nationals deputy leader Steph Ryan over the website wars.
Ms Lovell reportedly accused both The Nationals and Reason Party of “low” tactics in the tit-for-tat exchange after the Nats created a website under Member for Mildura Ali Cupper’s domain name earlier this year.
Sunraysia Daily exclusively revealed Reason, Ms Cupper’s coalition partner at the time, then returned serve by buying up the domain names of several Nats MPs – including state leader Peter Walsh – and Upper House MPs.
“(This) does reek of hypocrisy on both sides,” Ms Lovell reportedly said on WhatsApp.
“It’s just sad that either side ever went that low to begin with.”
Ms Ryan then hit back, saying her party was justified in highlighting Ms Cupper’s political record on the website it had created, alicupper.com, which has since been taken down.
“There’s nothing low about what we did, Wendy. We took a website to tell the people of Mildura about the issues Ali and (Reason leader) Fiona (Patten) were selling in Melbourne,” Ms Ryan reportedly wrote.
Ms Lovell responded by saying: “Purchasing her domain name and running a website in her name was low, Steph.”
Both Ms Lovell and Ms Ryan declined to comment further on the exchange on Tuesday.
