John Madigan (Victoria, Democratic Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will address some of Senator Ryan's comments on preference harvesting and speak about local government in Victoria, where both major parties have failed in some elections to run candidates. I would suggest that if you are worried about the size of the ballot paper you stop putting up dummy candidates as Independents. This is a commonly known thing that happens on both sides. Both major parties do this. Stop slurring the minor, smaller parties that do not participate in this. You may say that you are not doing that but, in effect, that is what you are doing. We have, as I said, the new term 'democracy rationalists'. The fact is that we have democracy rationalists in this place now.