It is becoming the party of mishaps, if not of mean-spiritedness. Ahead of an election on May 18th the ruling, right-of-centre Liberal Party has been obliged to disavow two of its parliamentary candidates for Islamophobia. Another stepped down after it emerged that he had called on the party to expel gay members. A fourth candidate was censured, but not dumped, for suggesting that women lack the “business skills” to earn as much as men.

Australia’s main opposition party, Labor, faces similar scandals: it ditched two of its would-be mps this month for sexist and anti-Semitic slurs. But it does not already have a reputation for prejudice and division. Last year the Liberals’ parliamentary caucus toppled its moderate leader, Malcolm Turnbull, in a right-wing coup. Female Liberal mps have since made headlines by accusing their male colleagues of intimidation and misogyny. The new leadership has tried to revive the party’s prospects by fanning paranoia about the trickle of illegal immigrants who attempt to reach Australia’s northern shores by boat from Indonesia and by promising to cut legal immigration, too. It also insists that Labor’s plans to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases will wreck the economy.