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This campaign has had plenty of life in it so far but is it now being haunted by the living dead? JOE HILDEBRAND analysis
View in browser 29th April 2025
 

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Joe Hildebrand
Federal election correspondent

This campaign has had plenty of life in it so far but is it now being haunted by the living dead?

As revealed by this masthead today, One Nation is fielding dozens of “ghost candidates” in seats across the country — people whose names appear on the ballot but who appear to have no official profile.

And so what is the purpose of these otherworldly contestants for public office?

What else could it be: These ghost candidates are there to attract ghost voters.

INTERACTIVE: Don't know who to vote for? Election MatchMaker is here to help

image‘Kooyong’ by Mark Knight.

Of all the demographics that political parties try to go after in an election campaign, none is harder to reach than young men.

They do not consume mainstream media, they do not respond to polls and they do not talk about their feelings.

FULL LIST: Every polling booth if you want to vote early

As a Labor insider told me at the outset of the campaign, the party research could tell them what women over 35 were eating for breakfast each day but young men they simply had no idea about. They might as well all be Jason Bourne.

CLICK HERE FOR JOE HILDEBRAND'S FULL ANALYSIS

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VIDEO OF THE DAY

imageDutton press conference nuked by hazmat activists

Anti-nuclear protesters forced Opposition leader Peter Dutton to cut short a visit to a local sporting club in the NSW town of Sanctuary Point.

A trio of men dressed in hazmat suits and masks walked onto the Francis Ryan Sports Field— within the electorate of Gilmore — and began measuring the ground and claiming there were nuclear readings.

An air raid siren blared in the background as the men spent more than five minutes on their stunt, while children taunted them on the sidelines.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

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