Animal Justice's strategic candidate Alison Baker

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"Alison has been a long-time animal activist, and has run previously," he said.

"She's a strategic candidate, which means she'll still run for the seat, but just not actively, so she won't get all the emails, or go to forums, and that sort of stuff."

That explanation was backed up by a comment made by the party's Facebook admin, in response to a post on their page, announcing Anna Gralton would run for the Lyons seat.

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When asked by a member of the page whether Ms Gralton would be seen campaigning around St Helens, St Marys or Bicheno, the answer was "no".

"Anna agreed to nominate as a 'paper' candidate, so that we at least had an AJP option on the Lyons HoR ballot paper [as did two others - Clark and Bass] so we had someone standing in every seat to give voters the option of AJP in the Lower House and to increase votes for Ivan in the Senate," it read.

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A source close to the party, who preferred to remain anonymous, said they felt the decision was "unethical".

"I don't like it, and it's part of the reason I'm not really involved with the party as much anymore," they said.

"I think it's deceptive."

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The AJP was contacted twice for comment from either Ms Baker, or the party's president Anna Pollard, however, no response was received on either occasion.

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