This seems like a long winded way of making, 'I heard that he said - that she said - that the boogie man may had said...'Mr Seeney, while visiting Gladstone yesterday, hit out at Mr Wallace, who claims a newspaper journalist in North Queensland confirmed reports to parliament that the LNP wants to introduce tolls to the Bruce Highway.
Modern newspapers, with their massive cutbacks of sub-editors and journalists, increasingly rely of simply reprinting press releases - they set up a shelf 'research centre' or 'institute' which then issues a press release. The media passes these releases off as factual without basic checks. Once a newspaper prints the dodgy release, the faker who released it then points to the newspaper as a credible source.
The ABC's 'Media Watch' ran a segment on this very phenominom just last night. Interesting viewing which is easily available on iView. In fact... http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/tra...s/s3248777.htm
I am sure politicians are not above dirty tricks & hoaxes.
Scotty