John Madigan (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Much is made of Senator Muir's low vote, but let us be clear: there are 11 senators sitting in this place who have not faced a vote—11 senators from the coalition, the ALP and the Greens. There does need to be some critical analysis of who sits here and how they got here. For the benefit of the Senate, as I said, we have quite a few senators who have never faced a vote, and 11 of those senators, which equates to 14.47 per cent of the Senate, never stood for election.

Senator McKim referred to backroom deals. Well, Senator McKim, there were 11 people parachuted into this place who never faced the voters, and two of them belong to the Greens. That is a fact. These are people who find themselves here by backroom deals, as I said, not directly elected by the voters. How does the crossbench compare to some of the government senators and the government's rhetoric in this space about who sits here and how they got here? Fifteen point thirty-eight per cent—that is, two senators on the government's front bench, ministers—got here with fewer than 500 votes; 23.07 per cent, three of them, got there with fewer than 1,000 votes; and five of them got fewer than 1,500 votes, which equates to 38.46 per cent. They never faced the voters. Yet the argument put forward on Q&A by the former minister for small business was that people could not get elected in a local council election— (Time expired)