Special Minister of State Don Farrell has called for consideration of increasing the number of federal politicians in Australia’s parliament.

Mr Farrell cited population growth and workload pressures on MPs as justification for potentially increasing the number of electorates.

It comes after he tasked the joint committee on electoral matters with examining whether more politicians should represent voters in the upper and lower houses.

“Since Federation, so 125 years ago, the parliament has only been increased twice,” Mr Farrell told Sky News Sunday Agenda.

“The last time that the parliament was increased was in the mid-1980s under Bob Hawke.

“At that time, the population of Australia was 16 million. By the time of the next election, the population will almost have doubled, we will be

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