On Tuesday, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s campaign bus pulled up at a football field on the NSW south coast in the marginal seat of Gilmore. But it was not there for long.

After three protesters in hazmat suits hijacked a planned press conference and began measuring the site for radiation levels, the bus was quickly back on the road. The gatecrashers – all of whom were members of the South Coast Labour Council – anointed Dutton the “Member for Fukushima”, a reference to the Japanese city that experienced a nuclear disaster in 2011 after it was hit by an earthquake and a tsunami.