Yesterday the Premier and Opposition Leader traded public barbs on shop trading hour deregulation – a long-held Liberal policy to which the party recommitted itself last year.

For a party seeking broad support in a city with a perpetual obsession with its shop trading arrangements, it seems a no-brainer; but like everything in SA politics, it’s complicated.

The South Australian Independent Retailers are spearheading a push against further deregulation, warning the move will see smaller operators squeezed out by the main players, Coles and Woolworths.

Yesterday, Jay Weatherill was only too happy to sign the association’s pledge card promising to oppose further relaxing the state’s trading hours.

Today, it was Xenophon’s turn.

It was some neat symbolism: the minor party leader who sends a collective shudder through the two majors siding with independent grocers against their own duopoly competitors.

In reality, though, it’s more significant than that.

If Xenophon’s standing in recent polls is reflected in the fall of seats in the state’s lower house, his party’s position on any given issue gains particular significance, as it becomes increasingly unlikely either party will manage to form a workable majority on its own.

Thus the new reality in state politics is such issues are no longer a question of backing one horse or another – it’s likely every policy position will be scrutinised by a third party, either over a cabinet table or across the floor of parliament.

The Liberals were quick to claim Xenophon’s retreat on Sunday penalty rates and his opposition to trading hour deregulation put him firmly in cahoots with Labor; the party’s official Twitter handle today even claimed he was already in a “coalition with the Labor Party”.

The 2018 SA Election hasn't even been held and Nick Xenophon has formed a coalition with the Labor Party #saparli

— SA Liberal Media (@SALibMedia) December 4, 2017

The fact that as yet all SA Best’s endorsed candidates are running in Liberal-held seats helps fuel that perception.

But Xenophon insisted today he’d be rolling out “more candidates… particularly in Labor seats, in the lead-up to Christmas”.

“Expect another six or seven candidates before Christmas,” he said, adding that there would be another six or seven announced again in the new year.

He said there was no intent to target the Liberals, despite a widespread belief his party’s gains could be most fruitful in the Hills zone covering a slew of seats held by the Opposition – but all with retiring sitting members.

“I can understand that they’re paranoid,” Xenophon said of the Liberals.

“I can’t help their paranoia.

“At the end of the day, my ambition is to have both Labor and Liberal parties hate me in equal measure… I’m pretty sure I’ll achieve that.”

Some might suggest he has already, but – like everything – it’s complicated.

Xenophon may have won the blessing of the independent retailers for his stance on trading hours, but association CEO Colin Shearing is strongly opposed to the former senator’s backflip on penalty rates.

“We’re not in support of Nick doing what he’s done there,” he said today.

Add to that the association’s concerns over energy costs, land tax and payroll tax, and it makes it hard to see the organisation picking a political side that will fulfil all its demands.

It says the biggest issue facing the state is sluggish population, which means there is no critical mass to justify wholesale deregulation.

“People say they should be able to shop when they want, but it just doesn’t work that way – it costs money to run a business,” Shearing said.

The Liberal Party isn’t taking a backwards step, and privately welcomes the free publicity it gets courtesy of the shop trading debate being dragged out again, a year after it first unveiled its policy.

The party has been front-footed in recent weeks in its attacks on Xenophon – a bold gambit for a party that’s unlikely to be able to govern without SA Best’s support, at least according to recent polls.

For his part, Shadow Treasurer Rob Lucas said today he was unconvinced by the narrative that Xenophon would hold the balance of power – at least in person.

“He’s got to be elected first,” he told InDaily, noting that the conventional wisdom ahead of the Queensland election was that One Nation would have a big say in the new parliament – a prediction that failed to materialise.

“Ultimately these issues will only be determined if and when he’s in a position to implement them,” he said.

“It doesn’t mean the parties don’t have their position on the basis that somebody who might be elected says they might or might not support it… all we can do is indicate, ‘hey, this is what our policy will be if we’re elected’, and that will be the policy we’ll put to the parliament.

“If Nick’s there, he’ll have a chance to have a say.”

Xenophon faces media today. Photo: Tony Lewis / InDaily

Business SA joined the pile-on today, attacking Xenophon on the penalty rates issue; but the SA Best leader bit back, arguing that “in the context of the SA election, Business SA has chosen to be highly partisan by backing the Liberal Party”.

“Business SA should be re-named ‘Big Business SA’,” he said.

“It seems that Business SA and the SA Libs are prepared to stomp on small businesses and kill jobs with their reckless advocacy and plan for open slather shop trading hours.”

Xenophon today reflected on last week’s surprise push by Labor that will see the contentious Fairness Clause removed from the state’s constitution act. The clause was inserted in 1991 as an attempt to engineer election results that ensure the party with a popular majority can form Government – although that has only happened twice in the six elections since.

Xenophon said the move helped un-entrench “the two-party duopoly”, so “that has to be good for democracy”.

“I’m hoping there will be enough change in enough seats to show that the two-party preferred vote doesn’t have same currency it does now,” he said.

He noted, too, that Labor’s own motivation was less for democratic fairness than electoral self-interest.

“Labor’s position is consistent with that age-old saying: always back the horse called self-interest,” he said.

“That’s what they’re backing.”

It’s a horse that will be ridden into the ground over the three months until polling day. But with three parties now jostling for position on the political stage, backing just one horse – even one called ‘self-interest’ – may no longer be enough.

It’s complicated.