Alarming AI ads are flooding social media in the lead-up to Victoria’s election. But who is behind them?

A machete-wielding robber, a tsunami of debt' ... campaigns echoing opposition talking points outspend major parties

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A man clad in a balaclava and brandishing a machete terrorises a worker at a petrol station before firebombing the building on the way out.

A woman gives birth on the side of the road, unable to reach a hospital due to ambulance ramping and crater-like potholes, which also stop a fire truck in its tracks.