Labor candidates come under fire The coalition says Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's sincerity about party reform will be tested by what action he takes against two Labor candidates who've made headlines for the wrong reasons. Mr Rudd says Labor's national secretary George Wright will examine claims of misconduct by the candidates. The challenger in the safe Labor Victorian seat of Hotham, Geoff Lake, has been forced again to apologise for abusing a fellow councillor Kathy Magee during a meeting in 2002. Mr Lake told News Corp newspapers he had apologised several times to Ms Magee and was still remorseful. Labor ministers including Mark Dreyfus and Tanya Plibersek defended Mr Lake on Saturday, saying it was a long time ago, when he was 22, and he had apologised many times. Meanwhile, Labor candidate for Kennedy, Ken Robertson, has told the Courier-Mail Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is a bigot. "I hope Australia never has to suffer his Catholicism and the things that he's doing personally, because I think he's a very, very bigoted person," Mr Robertson reportedly said. He'd have the White Australia policy back in a flash, if he could. Shadow attorney-general George Brandis said the two reports of "serious misconduct" posed a test for Mr Rudd. He linked it to Thursday's announcement Labor was dumping its candidate for Forde, Des Hardman, in favour of former Queensland premier Peter Beattie. "If Mr Rudd is willing ruthlessly to sack a candidate who is innocent of any wrongdoing, what leadership will he show, what action will he take against these two candidates ... who have in different ways disgraced themselves?" he asked reporters in Brisbane," Senator Brandis said. If Mr Rudd stands by these candidate, while dismissing poor old Mr Hardman in Forde as part of his political chess game, then the Australian people will make their own judgments about Mr Rudd's personal standards and they'll make their own judgment about Mr Rudd's hypocrisy. Mr Rudd said he'd seen the media coverage and would ask Labor's national secretariat to report on both Mr Lake and Mr Robertson's behaviour. Meanwhile, One Nation candidate Stephanie Banister, who was ridiculed after referring to Islam as a country in a television interview, has withdrawn from the election campaign.