[4] The name is included in the motto (drawn originally from the Satires of Juvenal) Quidquid agunt homines nostri farrago libelli est – "whatever men do forms the motley subject of our page" which was written on the first issue of the famous eighteenth-century periodical Tatler.

Noteworthy past editors include Cyril Pearl, Geoffrey Blainey, Amirah Gust, Claude Forrell, Ian Robinson, Morag Fraser, Henry Rosenbloom, Garrie Hutchinson, Ross McPherson, Colin Golvan, Lindsay Tanner, Peter Russo, Louise Carbines, Jim Brumby, Pete Steedman, Arnold Zable, Kate Legge, Nicola Gobbo, Cathy Bale, Christos Tsiolkas, and Nam Le.

[1] Farrago is a magazine whose content is produced and edited entirely by students, which aims to be a voice, creative outlet and source of information for those who attend the University of Melbourne – irrespective of age, course and interests.

[43] In most previous years, the election guide has been included as a section in an edition of Farrago, sometimes appearing as a perforated, removable booklet.

[43] In 2017, the editors opted to print the guide as a separate booklet entirely, which was then slipped into editions of Farrago on stands around the University of Melbourne campus.

[44] Despite the magazine's commitment to providing a voice to a diverse range of contributors regardless of political persuasion, the editorial partisanship of the publication has varied under different editors.

She also noted that overt partisanship was still visible more recently, with a late 2013 edition of Farrago featuring a cover illustration of Tony Abbott with the caption "WE'RE FUCKED".