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Ousted mayor Sam Johnson says he now regrets his failed “Contiki tour” foray into state politics under Nick Xenophon’s SA Best banner – which he blames for his shock loss in the weekend’s local government elections.
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Frank Pangallo says the State Government’s proposed state productivity commission should assess its plans for council rate-capping.
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The formation of a potential voting bloc that could wield the balance of power in the state’s new-look Upper House looks a lost cause, with former Nick Xenophon sidekick John Darley today trading insults with SA Best, labelling it full of “dickheads” and declaring the party should split.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
