Premier Jay Weatherill has apologised to Liberal MP Andrew Southcott after a State Government political adviser spread “lies” on Twitter about the MP.

Yesterday, a Twitter account – now known to belong to Tim Picton,  a political adviser to state Health Minister Jack Snelling – claimed that Southcott was in Fiji, rather than in Adelaide campaigning.

An angry Southcott, who holds South Australia’s most marginal seat, told ABC radio that the false claims were designed to damage him. He said he had not been in Fiji since he was a child, in 1978.

Later this morning Weatherill dressed down Picton and called Southcott personally to apologise.

“Apparently one of the labor staffers was making some remarks on Twitter which were untrue and when I found out about it we’ve asked the staff member to make sure that doesn’t happen again and I’ve apologised to Mr Southcott,” Weatherill said.

Asked whether Southcott accepted the apology, the Premier said: “Mr Southcott was angry and he was entitled to be because lies were spread about him.”

Southcott claims Picton is campaigning for his Labor opponent in Boothby, Annabel Digance, who also works for Snelling.

Weatherill said he did not know whether Picton was working for Digance’s campaign, but he said Picton was on leave when he made the comments on Twitter.

He said staffers from both sides of politics “commonly use Twitter traffic to bag each other, frankly, and I think it’s something that should stop. I think it’s unacceptable”.

However, he stopped short of sacking Picton.

“I don’t think it deserves to be a sackable offence,” he said.

He said he believed Picton was chastened by his call.

For Labor it is the worst possible start to its campaign in Boothby, the only seat it believes it has any chance of winning from the Liberals in South Australia.