Xenophon factor should scare major parties in South Australia

Nick Xenophon believes he can slot back into South Australian politics after a decade in the Senate. He might be right.

Given the state of South Australian politics, Nick Xenophon believes he can slot back in after a decade in the Senate as a potential kingmaker at the next state election.

There is no denying Xenophon’s popular appeal in South Australia. Polls give Xenophon’s party anywhere from 18 to 21 per cent of the vote.

Before Xenophon’s 10.15am bombshell yesterday, there had been plenty of commentary and musings about the so-called “X-factor” at the state election due on March 17.

But despite snapshot polls suggesting Xenophon’s new SA Best party was in the game, he had not named any candidates or identified which seats his new state-based party would contest.

I had argued on an ABC radio panel yesterday, just an hour before his announcement, that it was too early to predict the impact of SA Best at the election and that Xenophon’s influence was overblown. The theory was that South Australians were happy to vote for a personality-driven party in the upper house, but most sensible voters would turn to a major party to form government.

Xenophon’s decision to himself run in the lower house seat of Hartley against first-term Liberal MP Vincent Tarzia, a backbencher who’s made little impact in the parliament, radically changes everything.

If he gets his candidate selection right there will be a genuine three-corner contest.

As is his style, Xenophon coyly says that running in Hartley, an electorate in which his law firm is based and where he has lived for decades, will be “the toughest political fight of my life”. What tosh. Xenophon will beat Tarzia without breaking a sweat.

There was plenty of bravado yesterday from the Liberals, with tweets of “bring it on” from Tarzia and Opposition Leader Steven Marshall, while Premier Jay Weatherill stayed silent.

Xenophon’s state election campaign is the worst possible news for the major parties.

The canny politician will take votes off both Labor and Liberal as he taps into an increasingly disillusioned population.

The answer for his opponents is to encourage all voters to apply the same rigour to the policies of SA Best as they would to the major parties.