Less than a week out from the election, mystery surrounds the One Nation candidate and her connection to the electorate.
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation lower house candidate for the seat of Richmond in May’s federal election is Tracey Bell-Henselin, who has formerly represented the minor party in a Queensland state election.
Ms Bell-Henselin had failed to respond to interview requests from BayFM and The Echo and also failed to attend the Meet the Candidates forum in the Byron Theatre Monday, May 16.
The Echo contacted One Nation headquarters to enquire about Ms Bell-Henselin, who was registered as the party’s Richmond candidate, but was missing from their website.
One Nation said the omission would be rectified, but Ms Bell-Henselin’s profile was still missing from the site Tuesday morning, whereupon One Nation advised it would be uploaded within ten minutes of the phone conversation.
The omission was just one of several noted by other media in the federal election campaign, leading to accusations that One Nation was hosting so-called ‘ghost’ candidates across the country.
Ghost candidates don’t just live in electorates besides the ones they were representing on ballot papers, they are also barely visible on the ground campaigning.
♦ Mia Armitage is a BayFM member and Community Newsroom reporter.
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