Railroad cars keep crashing into the train wreck that is Australian politics.
After yesterday's Poogate affair, when a video surfaced of likely senator Ricky Muir (of the powerhouse Australian Motoring Enthusiast party) pulling his brother's pants down and throwing kangaroo faeces at him, you could have been forgiven for thinking we'd gone as low as we could go.
Today, however, invisible man Jaymes Diaz — the Liberal candidate who vanished from public view after famously mangling his party's six point plan for stopping the boats — has reportedly escaped media questions by fleeing a Coles Express petrol station without going inside to pay.
Diaz (and his brother Jayson, who crashed the campaign van on election night) fled the petrol station after telling radio producer Andrew Jaffrey the Liberal party had conceded the seat of Greenway. Diaz told Jaffrey he had "no comment" on whether or not he had run a terrible campaign.
Since pulling a runner, the Diaz brothers are reported to have called the service station to pay via credit card.
Meanwhile, the only candidate capable of topping Diaz for entertainment value — glorious Palmer United Party leader Clive Palmer — has said he won't win the closely contested house seat of Fairfax due to Australia's "corrupt system", introducing a bit of Bush v Gore intrigue to the campaign.
"There's absolutely no way I will win based (on) voting irregularities and the security of the ballots," Palmer said, and at this point, who knows? He could be onto something.
Lest you comfort yourself in the belief that Palmer's paranoia won't actually affect you, keep in mind that two PUP candidates are expected to be elected to the Senate, and Palmer has sworn they won't be passing Tony Abbott's bills if the big fella loses Fairfax.
"We think it's a corrupt system," Palmer said. "Until that's sorted out Abbott won't be getting any legislation through the Senate with our support."
On the plus side, Palmer has managed to get through most of the day without calling anyone's ex-wife a Chinese spy, so, uh, Advance Australia Fair, we guess.
