The Liberals should show respect to potential allies

In the Spectator magazine, Liberal Party National Director Brian Loughnane wrote, "It appears the Liberal Democrats have received 9 per cent of the vote in the Senate in New South Wales. In 20 years of professionally examining polling, I have never seen the LDP register a heartbeat of community support. Their vote has come almost entirely at the expense of the Liberal party. We strongly opposed their name change to include the word 'Liberal', arguing that it would create voter confusion. The Electoral Commission disagreed. But so it has proved."

This is unmitigated twaddle. While we have never felt the need to kiss babies or perform stunts for the TV news, our policies have been steadily attracting libertarian-oriented voters since 2001. And I seriously doubt Liberal polling even attempted to measure our support.

Some of our votes may have come from people who mistook us for the Liberals/Nationals. Perhaps some thought we were related to the Democrats or Christian Democrats. But it is equally likely some who voted for the Democratic Labour Party thought they were voting Labor.

Yet our vote in NSW rose 7.2% while the Liberals dropped 4.7%, almost as much as Labor. In SA, where we were fifth on the ballot, our vote rose 3% while the Liberals fell 9.8%.

There is little doubt a sizeable number of our votes in NSW were because we were the first party on the ballot. This usually amounts to 1-2% of the vote, but with the NSW ballot paper offering 42 parties it was probably higher.

The solution to this is to make voting optional rather than compulsory, another of our policies.

In any case, we believe we would have won a Senate seat irrespective of our first place. Using Antony Green's calculator, anything over 3.5% would probably have been enough given our flow of preferences. Indeed, we came within a whisker of winning in 2010 with 2.3%.

On the subject of preferences, prior to the election we contacted each division of the Liberal Party offering to give them our preferences in exchange for theirs ahead of most of the other minor parties.

Despite positive noises from several State Directors, only the Liberals' SA division preferenced the Liberal Democrats favourably. In all the other states, their preferences first went to a host of other parties including the Christian Democrats, Democratic Labour Party, Family First, Shooters and Fishers, Fishing and Lifestyle, Motoring Enthusiasts, No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics, Katter's Australia Party and Palmer United Party.

The Queensland division even preferenced the Australian Protectionist Party and Australia First ahead of the Liberal Democrats.

After July the government will be able to pass its legislation, notwithstanding opposition from Labor and the Greens, if it has the support of six of the eight minor party senators. For this it will require considerable goodwill.

Attacking our party because of its name, amending the rules so we cannot keep our name, or changing the system of voting so that minor parties cannot win seats in future, does not strike me as a formula for goodwill.

We would prefer the Liberal Party accepts that it does not own the word 'liberal', that minor parties are good for democracy, and that parties that promote less taxation and regulation should be preferred over the other kind.