'Journalist slaps candidate in Australia vote'

SYDNEY:A candidate in Australia's election got more than just questions from an encounter with a journalist Saturday -- suffering a slap to the face from a high-profile reporter, a report said.   

Opposition Labor Party candidate George Newhouse was at a polling station in Sydney's affluent eastern suburbs when approached by award-winning journalist Caroline Overington, witnesses told the Australian Associated Press.   

Overington, who has won Australia's highest journalistic honour, allegedly shocked voters and booth attendants by walking up and slapping Newhouse across the face before striding off, AAP reported.   

"At first we thought, 'Who was this woman yelling at Newhouse', then she slapped him and we realised it was Caroline Overington," one witness at Bellevue Hill Public School claimed.   

A spokeswoman for Newhouse confirmed that an incident had taken place but said his team was "considering our options".   

"It was Ms Overington," she said.   

Newhouse is a candidate in the rich seat of Wentworth, currently held by government minister and self-made millionaire Malcolm Turnbull but considered winnable by the centre-left Labor Party.   

But the seat has provided even more drama than simply politics, with Newhouse's ex-girlfriend Dani Ecuyer running against him as an independent.   

Last week flirtatious emails sent by Overington, who writes for national broadsheet The Australian, to Newhouse were published in rival papers. Overington dismissed the emails as a joke.