‘Coward’ uses Funnell’s name

The person posted a comment about the National Broadband Network (NBN) under his name on the site on Friday and Mr Funnell is taking action over the incident. 

“It’s a cowardly act for a start,” he said.

“I believe their motives are to discredit me because I’m a Wagga City councillor and with an upcoming federal election ... politics has stooped to a new low if they’ve stolen my ID to post comments supposedly from me which in the readers’ eyes could discredit my opinion and reputation.

“I take this quite seriously, so seriously I’m going to the police to find out who the culprit is and allow the law to deal with them.”

Mr Funnell wanted to make the public aware of the issues surrounding identity theft.

“I only raise this issue to raise awareness of the cowardly acts of these people and the harm it does to individuals,” he said. 

“For myself, it’s a blip on the radar, I’ve chosen to put myself in the public spotlight, but when this type of thing happens to those who haven’t chosen this path, it’s a sickening invasion of privacy.

“I’m not the only victim, the DA has also inadvertently been tarnished and these keyboard warriors/cowards should grow up.

“If they have an opinion, sign it to their own name.”

The DLP president called for law changes.

“I feel for other victims and I believe there should be stronger legislation to try and control these events,” he said.

* The Daily Advertiser apologises to Mr Funnell for the publication of the fake posting.

The Advertiser received the post from the email address paulfunnell@bigpond.com. We now accept that the message was not from Paul Funnell, the Wagga City Councillor and DLP president, and does not reflect his views on the NBN.

The views in the post were commented on in an opinion piece in the Weekend Advertiser.

The post has been removed from the Advertiser’s website and steps have been taken to verify the identity of people whose comments are published on the website.