David Penberthy: Time for first responder Nick Xenophon to show his policy cards

ALL the polls suggest that Nick Xenophon has a genuine show of becoming our Premier at the March 17 election. David Penberthy notes there is one standout person who seems genuinely surprised by this, almost alarmed, and it’s Nick Xenophon. TAKE OUR POLL

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ALL the polls suggest that Nick Xenophon has a genuine show of becoming Premier of South Australia at the March 17 election.

There is one standout person who seems genuinely surprised by this, almost alarmed, and it’s Nick Xenophon.

For the better part of 20 years, Nick Xenophon has enjoyed the luxury of being a political first responder; that is, to react to the policy work of others.

There have been causes he has championed, sure. Defending the Murray, campaigning for industry protections, local procurement, curbing gaming, to name a selection.

But beyond that, his political career has been all about collaborating with or campaigning against governments as they go about the business of governing.

All the polls suggest that SA has half a chance of electing a Xenophon government, however such a thing might be constructed, if the SA Best party wins the highest number of Lower House seats and creates a majority with whatever is left on the Liberal and Labor side.

Cartoonist Jos Valdman’s take on Nick Xenophon quitting the Senate to run for the state election.

This creates a whole new set of questions for Nick Xenophon. They go to policy and personnel.

Again, these are topics that Nick has never really had to trouble himself with.

What’s your tax policy? Will you cut payroll? Reduce land tax? Retain or expand those new foreign home ownership charges? What about the Emergency Services Levy? Is it too high? Can you cut it? If so, how would you pay for that?

Who’s your Treasurer going to be? Your health minister? Your attorney-general? Can we interview them?

These are all valid questions. They have become urgent ones for Nick Xenophon, who is finding out that believing smoking should be banned until the age of 21 does not constitute a health policy, or that limiting the use of ministerial chauffeurs does not represent a philosophy of government.

They are attention-grabbing announcements made on the fly that often land you on the front page.

Elizabeth Dabars expresses the nursing union’s view on Nick Xenophon’s policy credentials.

They are not a manifesto for the future of SA.

Over the past seven days, Nick has looked like some giddy and flustered small businessman who has been blindsided by the staggering level of demand for the new product he has created.

I am not sure how much sleep the bloke is getting — my guess would be close to none — but when we interviewed him yesterday on the radio he had the demeanour of someone who was in equal parts excited and overwhelmed by what lay before him. It is almost like the SA Best juggernaut became so big so quickly that the party has struggled to keep up with itself.

The best example of that was its bungling over its health policy.

SA Best copped a public dressing-down from the nurses union last week over its failure (six times, apparently) to reply to their request for a health policy, with the union provocatively awarding the party a zero after it failed to come up with one by deadline.

What this episode showed to me wasn’t so much incompetence as an inability to manage time.

It seems that Xenophon became so swamped with all the logistic and operational demands of his fledgling party — vetting candidates, lining up enough candidates to field a balanced team in both Labor and Liberal seats — that he didn’t get round to the more pertinent question of what he might actually do if his party winds up running the state.

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As things currently stand, this is Nick Xenophon’s Achilles heel, and one the major parties will be aiming their arrows at over the coming weeks. Xenophon is too shrewd an operator to be ignorant of that fact. It is why he said yesterday that we should be seeing a flurry of policy activity and announcements over a range of areas over the coming days, in a bid to head off the policy attacks.

The fascinating thing about South Australia right now is that so many voters are clearly prepared to embrace Nick Xenophon even with some significant gaps on key policy questions.

Personally, I can forgive any recklessness on the part of these voters. The reason is simple. What we are seeing in SA is a less insane re-run of the Trump presidency.

Nick is surging because people have had a gutful of the political mainstream, the political establishment.

The polls show that most voters feel a varying degree of antipathy towards the Labor brand.

Logic would tell you that after 16 years in power, Labor has taken on so much baggage that it surely cannot sneak back in again with an impertinent request for an uninterrupted two decades in office.

Having said that, voters seem equally ambivalent or even hostile towards the Liberals.

It feels as if the people who hate Labor are amazed and even angered that the conservatives still aren’t in winning shape — even though Labor has blundered along for almost two decades.

In this environment, it is not even remotely surprising that SA Best is attracting the largest primary votes in all the published polls thus far.

Many voters will suspend their usual policy scrutiny, rationalising that the state couldn’t be run any worse anyway.

It is an indictment on the major parties that this is the case. It explains why there is a new major party in this town.