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Former Prime Minister John Howard has questioned “fake” independents whose main objective is to “pull down Liberals”.

“These people are anti-Liberal and the reason I say that with complete conviction is that they’re not running in any safe Labor seats,” Mr Howard told Sky News host Paul Murray.

Mr Howard pointed out that the “fake” independents aren’t running against Labor MPs like Tanya Plibersek.

The former Prime Minister added that the consequence of electing one of the independents is there will be “one name taken out of the Liberal list”.