Environmental activist group Greenpeace has hijacked Liberal candidate Dave Sharma's campaign posters ahead of Saturday's Wentworth by-election.
30 corflutes went up overnight around Bondi Beach, with images and text appearing above and below Sharma's existing signage, in an attempt to dissuade locals from voting Liberal. 100 will go up around Sydney's eastern suburbs before Saturday.
Above Sharma's face is an image of a hand with string wrapped around the fingers, and the words: "The coal lobby is pulling the strings."
Below Sharma's original posters, Greenpeace has placed posters with quotes from former Liberal leader and member for Wentworth, John Hewson, and former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull's son Alex Turnbull.
A poster quoting Hewson reads "A major party without a climate action plan should forfeit the right to govern".
The two Alex Turnbull posters read "We need to send a message on climate ... The Liberal Party has been taken over by the extremists on the hard right" and "There's an undue level of influence on Liberal Party policy by a very small group of ... people who own a lot of coal".
Greenpeace Campaigner Jack Ballhausen told BuzzFeed News the posters were put up by Wentworth locals and Greenpeace volunteers who are “sick and tired of the government’s blatant inaction on climate change”.
“This campaign is about ensuring the next member for Wentworth champions meaningful and decisive action on climate change,” he said. “If the polls hold this Saturday, it will mean that thousands of lifelong Wentworth voters will have abandoned the Liberal party as a direct result of their stance on climate change.”
A ReachTel poll of 661 voters conducted on Monday for Greenpeace found that climate change is the number one issue for the voters of Wentworth, with more than two in five people nominating it as an issue that will sway their vote on Saturday.
The economy was second on 19%, then immigration (15.3%), health and hospitals (8.4%) and schools and education (7.4%).
Hewson has called on voters to turn their back on the Liberals and use the by-election as a referendum on climate change. He said it might take losing the seat to get the party to respond to the "urgent challenge" of climate change.
Sharma has said that he believes in climate change and that Australia should stick with the Paris climate agreement.
But he also said the Liberals are "doing enough" and has "a good record" on climate change, during a press conference with treasurer Josh Frydenberg last week.
The government dumped its own national energy guarantee (also known as the NEG) last month and has not announced a new climate policy to reduce emissions or meet Australia’s commitment to the Paris targets.
“I do think we are doing enough and I do think we have had a good record on climate change," Sharma said. "Emissions are at their lowest levels in 28 years."
Independent candidate Dr Kerryn Phelps told voters at a candidate forum earlier this week that Sharma was “the candidate for a party which doesn’t believe in climate change and that climate change sceptics have blocked any policy”.
The battle for Wentworth turned ugly this week when a vicious email was sent to hundreds of voters, falsely claiming Phelps had pulled out of the race due to an HIV diagnosis. The email instructed people to remove Phelps' campaign posters and vote for Sharma.
Internal Liberal polling published in the Australian on Wednesday indicated that Phelps looks likely to win the seat on preferences.
Phelps is leading Sharma 55% to 45% on the two-party preferred vote.