Poll puts Nick Xenophon ahead as preferred South Australian premier
Outgoing federal senator Nick Xenophon has been named as the preferred premier for South Australia as he prepares to contest the March state election.
A privately commissioned Galaxy poll puts the Liberals on 31%, with Xenophon’s SA Best party a close second on 30% and Labor on 26%.
The statewide poll of 806 voters last week reveals Xenophon, who will stand in the state seat of Hartley, as the preferred premier with 41% support, compared with the Labor premier, Jay Weatherill, and the opposition leader, Steven Marshall, both on 21% support.
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When asked on the Nine Network how he felt about the title “Premier Nick Xenophon”, he replied: “I don’t know about that, let me win a seat first.
“It is going to be a very interesting election campaign. 148 days to go.
“But it will be an election campaign like no other and it will change the duopoly. First I have to win the state seat of Hartley.”
On Sky News on Thursday, Xenophon suggested the task for SA Best was “a bit like climbing Mount Everest without oxygen, on crutches, it doesn’t mean it can’t be done but we’ll give it our best shot because South Australians desperately want real change that they can trust”.
Xenophon announced at the beginning of October that he would quit federal politics to run for the state seat of Hartley and recent polling has put him within reach of taking it from the Liberal MP Vincent Tarzia, who holds it by a margin of just 2.6%.
SA Best will field up to 20 candidates in lower house seats Xenophon believes they can snatch from the two major parties, while five candidates will run for the upper house.
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Xenophon is one of seven federal MPs whose citizenship status is before the high court – his mother was born in Greece and his Cyprus-born father held a British passport. It’s unclear when the high court will hand down its ruling.
In the Senate on Wednesday night, he said he did not know when he would be making his last speech, but hoped “this won’t be it, because I have a lot to say about many issues affecting my home state of South Australia”.
The polling was commissioned by the Australian Bankers’ Association, which is angry about a bank tax imposed by the Labor government, and leaked to the Australian.