When it comes to union sub-factions and the issue of gay marriage, the question of just how representative our politicians are these days becomes a serious one, writes Barrie Cassidy.

The world's latest sporting sensation is Maryborough's Matthew Dellavedova. The Victorian country boy is setting alight the NBA playoffs in the United States.

He has a beard.

So do thousands of sportsmen through American baseball and Australian rules football. The Ned Kelly style is the most popular. Beards are back.

Yet Australia hasn't had a prime minister with facial hair since Billy Hughes, who left office in 1923.

(The last United States president with a moustache was William Howard Taft - 1909-1913.)

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Hughes once said of Labor's first prime minister, Chris Watson: "His ... beard was exquisitely groomed, his abundant brown hair smoothly brushed ... He was the perfect picture of the statesman, the leader."

Not anymore. International characters like Karl Marx, Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein have made it near impossible for serious politicians to follow suit.

The communists, the despots and the hippies have ruined it for them.

So though about 10 per cent of Australian men wear facial hair, their representation in the parliaments of Australia is close to zero.

OK. That might not bother bearded men one little bit. But let's look further afield. The whole question of just how representative our politicians are these days is a serious one.

Take the example of embattled former union leader and recently resigned upper house whip in the Victorian parliament, Cesar Melhem.

The Labor powerbroker also held the exhilarating position of convener of the right wing sub-faction linked to the Australian Workers Union. That's right. The AWU has its own sub-faction within the parliamentary Labor Party. Now imagine how representative that group is. Imagine what they spend their idle hours talking about. How to improve the quality of life of ordinary Australian workers? Or how to further prop up their own privileged position?

The factions in the federal Parliament aren't nearly as splintered as that. The right breaks down into individual groups only on a state-by-state basis. OK, that's a lot, but still. And sometimes they meet as a national body of the right.

Next Monday, for example - at 5pm precisely - they will gather in the Senate opposition room in Canberra to discuss escalating tensions in the South China Sea. Professor Paul Dibb will address them. The event will end at 6pm to allow frontbenchers to leave for a meeting of the Shadow Cabinet.

Maybe the whole shadow cabinet would benefit from such an address? But no, the right is doing its own thing for its own reasons. It probably feels more comfortable that way. Among friends, sort of.

On the other side of politics representation is an issue as well, and the best example of that is gay marriage.

Poll after poll demonstrates the community overwhelmingly embraces the idea, yet the federal politicians in the main are being dragged kicking and screaming to a test of the numbers in the Parliament.

The Guardian Australia has crunched the numbers in the House of Representatives. Asked how they would vote if given a conscience vote on the issue, Labor, the Greens and the independents are very much in favour. The Coalition MPs on the other hand are very much against.

A similar poll of senators would almost certainly throw up even more resistance within the Liberal and National parties.

That's because senators are in effect handpicked by the party, and as a consequence, they are more beholden to the party than those in the house who are chosen by a more democratic pre-selection process. It just happens that Liberal and National party members are far more conservative than the community as a whole.

So while lower house MPs - many of them - are genuinely seeking the views of their constituents - the senators will be driven mainly by the view of their members.

Just as you would expect of the right wing convener of the AWU sub-faction, the Coalition senators will ignore public opinion in favour of their own interests.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of the ABC program Insiders. He writes a weekly column for The Drum.