Candidates from hell start to emerge

Other than for political tragics, Australian elections can be pretty dull, mostly marked by civility and a commendable absence of mob violence and bloodshed.

But interest always soars when someone really stuffs up - whether through sheer stupidity, not knowing better, knowing better but saying stuff anyway or for being altogether too honest.

This is the candidate from hell - someone whose conduct diminishes his or her own election prospects plus that of their party.

Former Liberal high-flyer Sophie Mirabella, narrowly defeated in 2013 and now standing again in the seat of Indi, made an early pitch for the title.

In a TV debate, she declared a local hospital missed out on $10 million in funding because voters sent independent Cathy McGowan to parliament instead of her.

She meant it to mean a government MP could do better than a non-aligned independent. Others read it as spiteful revenge on voters.

Chris Brown, the Labor candidate for Fremantle, previously an organiser with the Maritime Union of Australia, was the first high-profile disendorsement of the campaign.

He was dumped for failing to let the party know of criminal convictions going back his teenage days 30 years ago.

Was it really such a big deal? In an election based on government plans to stamp out union thuggery in the building industry, it surely was and Labor wasn't about to take a chance.

Next to go was Brown's Liberal opponent. Sherry Sufi was variously accused of embellishing his CV, opposing indigenous recognition and linking same-sex marriage to polygamy.

What finally brought him undone was a "f***-filled" rant featuring his former boss, WA Liberal MP Michael Sutherland.

Other aspiring politicians have come undone because of similar rants, often long before they even dreamed of high office.

Memo to aspiring candidates: the internet never forgets.

David Feeney normally is one of Labor's better performers, but lately a few people have doubts.

The opposition routinely highlights those coalition MPs who overlook declaring assets on the parliamentary register of interest.

And Labor has gone into this election with a headline policy to limit tax breaks for property investors.

So how did the member for Batman fail to declare his $2.3 million negatively-geared investment property?

Honourable mention should go to numerous Labor candidates and MPs - some 25 the government claims - who have hedged support for Labor's asylum-seeker policy.

Bill Shorten insists Labor is shoulder-to-shoulder with the government; the coalition counters by saying a good part of Labor clearly isn't.

Party statesman Peter Beattie believes candidates and MPs indulging in what he labels selfish luxury could potentially destroy Labor's campaign.

Australia has a rich history of candidates from hell, at both state and federal levels.

Major parties pride themselves on careful vetting but even promising candidates can have a really bad day.

Who can forget Jaymes Diaz, Liberal contender for the ultra-marginal Labor-held Sydney seat of Greenway at the 2013 election.

In an excruciating TV interview he repeatedly stumbled over coalition policy on asylum seekers in a manner so awe-inspiring the ensuing video went viral.

The coalition won the election with a swing of more than three per cent.

Diaz managed to send the swing the other way.

To be successful these days, a candidate needs a winning website profile.

And nowhere is that done better than in the US, as LNP candidate for the seat of Brisbane Trevor Evans recently realised.

Buzzfeed discovered he had shamelessly appropriated a slab of text from the website of fake US Congressman Tim Hawthorne, created by a design agency to demonstrate its web design capabilities.

Evans' basic error which led to getting busted was that neglected to change every mention of Tim to Trevor.

The July 2 election ends the political career of one of Australia's more colourful characters, mining magnate Clive Palmer.

Right to the time he declared he was a non-starter, Palmer insisted he could still win his Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax.

Support for the MP had sunk so low his $1000 nomination deposit - repayable if a candidates gains more than four per cent of the vote - would have been in peril.