THE Canning by-election is being overshadowed by parody accounts and rants on social media, which are threatening to overshadow genuine vote-gathering efforts by legitimate candidates.
Independent candidate Teresa van Lieshout posted angry rants on Facebook at the weekend and multiple parody accounts have been created targeting Liberal candidate Andrew Hastie.
Mr Hastie has been the target of two parody Facebook pages - The Andrew Hastie Fan Club and Give Hastie a Hand in Canning.
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READ NOWThe latter account plays on the controversy involving troops under Mr Hastie's command, who allegedly cut the hands from an insurgent for fingerprints.
Mr Hastie was not present during the incident, but his campaign during the Canning by-election has been marred by these controversies.
The posts on the page include multiple puns about hands.
While the former plays on Mr Hastie's career in the armed forces, calling for more police and army reservists on the streets, ID checkpoints and curfews.
Ms van Lieshout has her own "fan" page on Facebook - The Teresa van Lieshout is a fruitloop appreciation society page.
Over the weekend, a Facebook account purportedly owned by Ms van Lieshout launched an attack directed toward a Mandurah newspaper.
The account posted an acrostic poem about the paper " calling it"male dogs", "haters of women" and "nutcases" - after the newspaper published an online story about Ms van Lieshout.
Ms van Lieshout, a former teacher, calls herself "the fabulous rose between two thorns."
This plays on her position on the Canning by-election ballot card - she is in between Liberal candidate Mr Hastie and Labor candidate Matt Keogh.
She grew up in Mundijong and wants to abolish fines that she claims have unfairly jailed 20,000 West Australians in the past seven years.
She was dumped by the Palmer United Party in 2013 and has registered as an independent candidate for the by-election. She claims allegiance to the Voter Rights Party, which is not a registered political party.
Ms van Lieshout wants to teach the New Testament in Australian schools and wants to abolish psychiatry.
She calls the psychiatric profession genocidal and says it is responsible for "stealing, torture and murder."
The 43-year old told the Mandurah Coastal Times the English language is being destroyed because there are too many foreign teachers.
She also believes free trade deals and foreign ownership of land is an "ultimate act of treason".