The leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party flew to Adelaide this week to start negotiating a formal agreement with fellow conservatives Family First ahead of the March state election, InDaily can reveal.

The party’s David Leyonhjelm won a Senate seat in New South Wales in this year’s federal election – a victory which has prompted concern among major political parties about the capacity of “micro parties” to get elected with relatively small first preference votes.

Leyonhjelm and the party’s national president Peter Whelan toured State Parliament on Tuesday and met with several MPs who Leyonhjelm declined to name.

He did however confirm that he’d met with several state Liberals and Family First MLC Dennis Hood.

“I will be working closely with the Family First (Federal) Senator Bob Day in the Senate,” Leyonhjelm told InDaily. “So it makes sense for the Liberal Democrats and Family First to have a cooperative relationship in the political arena as well.

“We will probably have a more formal arrangement in due course, but we just sort of talked about the possibilities yesterday.

“On economic issues we are on reasonably similar territory with Family First, especially their new Senator Bob Day. He and I are very compatible on economic issues.”

Contacted yesterday, Hood played down suggestions of a formal link between the parties, saying that his preference discussions with Leyonhjelm had only been general.

“To be honest with you though, we discuss that with all parties. There’s certainly no formal agreement between our parties at this stage – there may be in the future, but there isn’t at this stage.

“The main purpose of the visit was that he was in town and was looking to meet with other MPs, and I was happy to meet with him.”

Leyonhjelm confirmed plans to run LDP candidates in the upcoming state election. He said he was working to strike preference deals with state parties.

“Yes we are. The voting system in South Australia has quite a lot of similarities with the senate. And so therefore it’s attractive to small parties.

“And Family First is quite a significant minor party in South Australia.”

The LDP’s Senator-elect also criticised laws before State Parliament this morning which will block candidates who fail to garner more than 2.5 per cent of the primary vote from picking up preferences in the Upper House.

“We’re not very keen on laws that make it more difficult for small parties to get into parliament, and we think small-party diversity is good for democracy.”

The LDP describes itself as a broadly libertarian party interested in smaller government – “ask not what the Government can do for you, but what you can do for yourself,” as Leyonhjelm put it.