Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

It is always useful to get those sorts of things on the record. The Democrats have quite openly stated when we have done deals. Indeed, if the minister would like I could elaborate at length about some of the deals the Democrats have done over time, including some very good deals when I was leader. The point is that we were open about the deals we made, and we justified them and copped the flak or the praise as we went along. There is nothing wrong with doing deals if they are open deals. The problem is when they are secret deals, and the bigger problem is when people deny that they are doing them and continue to assert plaintively and with great innocence that Family First does not do deals.

Frankly, if you have an opportunity as a representative of your constituency to improve legislation for your constituents in an area of importance to you, I think it is pretty irresponsible not to seek to use opportunities to do that, as long as it is not dishonest or secretive and does not involve a compromise of your own principles and values. Certainly you want to do smart deals. Senator Conroy perhaps confessed—at least I think it was a confession—that Labor had made a mistake in doing a deal on business tax reform when supporting the government’s business tax changes.