In a whirlwind 48 hours, the Australian election has lost a host of its most controversial candidates.

From homophobic comments about sitting MPs to secret strip-club footage, to Facebook posts about naked centaurs, a deluge of racist, sexist and bizarre behaviour has claimed the careers of four candidates in only two days.

The scandal has stretched across the political spectrum – from fringe, anti-immigrant parties to the governing Liberal-National coalition, who lost two candidates on Wednesday.

Others – including from the opposition Labor party – have been exposed, but are still running.

The resignations began on Tuesday, with the anti-immigrant One Nation party’s lead senate candidate.

Steve Dickson had survived the release of secret recordings of him asking for money from the NRA, but had to step down after footage was released of him in a strip club, groping women and making racist comments on the same trip.

Another One Nation candidate, this time in the north Queensland seat of Leichhardt, was then exposed for sharing lewd and bizarre Facebook posts – one of which depicts a naked woman Photoshopped to look like a centaur with the caption: “MMMM!!! Interesting thoughts.” Ross Macdonald also uploaded photos of him groping women, and of women’s cleavage, but has not yet been removed from standing.

On Wednesday, the Labor candidate for the seat of Melbourne apologised, but did not step down, over Facebook posts he made seven years ago that joked about rape. In 2012, Luke Creasey shared a variant of the “Overly Attached Girlfriend” meme which said: “If you don’t date me, you’ll go to prison, I’ll say you raped me.”

The same day, meanwhile, two Liberal candidates in Melbourne formally quit over two different incidents, one Islamophobic and one homophobic.

In the morning, Jeremy Hearn had his endorsement cancelled by head office, after an anti-Muslim rant he made in the comments section of a conservative blog said Muslims wanted to overthrow Australian law and were “lying about their purpose to conceal their activities”.

In the afternoon, Peter Killin quit after he was caught plotting to bring down a fellow Liberal – the sitting MP Tim Wilson – because he was openly gay.

Writing in the comments section of a different Christian rightwing blog, Killin complained that Wilson had been reconfirmed for the seat of Goldstein. Referencing the fact that Wilson won his preselection by one vote, he said: “If you and I were there to participate in preselection the result = no homosexual MP.”

Also on Wednesday, another Liberal candidate, Sachin Joshi, was caught saying the gender pay gap was because women had less “business skills”.

The comments, made on LinkedIn last year, said: “The main reason for the gender gap lies in the active interest (or lack of it) towards business skills/responsibilities … This warrants further research into why women (doctors) are less active/interested in pursuing business skills?

“In my interaction with many female doctors, I have observed that they put lesser priority on understanding money matters, dealing with staff issues, managing commercial aspects and other business-related ‘stuff’.”

And, on Monday, Labor had to remove one of its senate candidates in the Northern Territory, after he shared antisemitic videos on Facebook of the conspiracy theorist David Icke claiming that Jewish people can shape-shift into giant lizards.

On Tuesday, the Liberal MP Andrew Hastie also denied he had met with an Australian far-right extremist, after the man uploaded a video claiming the meeting took place.

Another Liberal MP, Ian Goodenough, said, however, that the MPs encountered him briefly at a rally. But Hastie said he was “confident” he never met the man.