Nick Xenophon packing up his Senate office boxes last year ahead of his unsuccessful state election tilt. Photo: Mick Tsikas / AAP

Politics

NICK OFF: Xenophon dropped in radical NXT rebrand

Nick Xenophon’s name will be expunged from the parties he founded, with the former senator’s name to be dropped from SA Best and his federal ‘Team’ seeking a radical rebrand to become the “Centre Alliance”.

Opinion

How Xenophon lost hope and SA Best deserted the battlefield

In the second and final part of his analysis of what went wrong with Nick Xenophon’s tilt for state parliament, Haydon Manning – a quasi-insider in the SA Best campaign – reveals how the party leader had given up hope for his own election weeks out from polling day.

Opinion

Why the SA Best bubble burst: a quasi-insider's account

Political scientist Haydon Manning ceased commentary on the state election due to his close family ties to Nick Xenophon’s SA Best. However, in the first of a two-part series, he now provides a warts-and-all analysis of what went wrong in the campaign – the lack of funding and seasoned campaigners, and the strategic mistakes from the man who insisted on running the show almost single-handedly.

Politics

Xenophon slides into third place in Hartley

The magnitude of Nick Xenophon’s electoral defeat has become clear, with the former Senator sliding into third place in his own target seat of Hartley behind both Liberal and Labor after the final distribution of preferences.

Politics

'We became the bastards': Whatever happened to SA Best?

Nick Xenophon’s SA Best election foray failed because the party went from keeping the bastards honest to “being another one of the bastards”, according to a pointed appraisal by a high-profile candidate as the party sifts through the rubble of its campaign.