Centre Alliance (CA), formerly known as the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT), is a centrist and social liberal Australian political party based in the state of South Australia. It currently has one elected representative, Rebekha Sharkie in the House of Representatives; since 2022 she has been the party's only candidate, describing herself as "a party of one", and citing savings in the party account as the main reason for her not to run as an independent.
Since its founding in July 2013, the party has twice changed names. At the time of the 2016 federal election, it was known as the Nick Xenophon Team. After Nick Xenophon founded SA Best, an affiliated state-based party, NXT sought to change its name to SA-BEST (Federal). However, prior to Australian Electoral Commission approval, Xenophon left politics, and the party withdrew its application and changed its name to Centre Alliance. In 2018, Centre Alliance senator Stirling Griff stated that SA Best is "a separate entity, a separate association, a separate party" from Centre Alliance.Podcast mpegmedia.abc.net.au March 2018
The party's ideological focus is a combination of culturally liberal and populist policies, drawing from the positions of Xenophon. Its present members have variously declared support for same-sex marriage, reform of the Australian Intelligence Community, action on climate change, support for military veterans, affordable tax cuts, Australian-made manufacturing (including defence-industry spending), and legalising euthanasia.
History
Nick Xenophon ran for election as an independent candidate in Australia under a "No Pokies" ticket that ran in South Australian state elections from 1997 to 2006. He was elected in 1997 and 2006. The 2013 Australian federal election saw independent "Nick Xenophon Group", with Xenophon as the lead candidate, win 24.9 percent of the statewide upper house vote in South Australia. This was an unprecedented result for a non-major party with Nick Xenophon Group outpolling the Australian Labor Party to come in second behind the Liberal Party of Australia, which won office. Although Xenophon was re-elected, his running mate Stirling Griff narrowly missed out to Bob Day of the Family First Party.
In 2014, Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) emerged from Nick Xenophon Group. Its management committee was composed of Xenophon, John Darley, Griff, and Connie Bonaros.
In the 2014 South Australian state election, John Darley, who took Nick Xenophon's place in the state parliament in 2007, ran under the banner of Independent Nick Xenophon Team. Without Xenophon as a candidate, being in the national senate, John Darley won 12.9 percent of the statewide upper house vote. John Darley, who was appointed in 2007 to succeed Xenophon for "No Pokies", was re-elected.
On 5 March 2017, Xenophon announced that he would launch a new party in South Australia in time for the March 2018 state election to enable them to focus on domestic South Australian issues as opposed to wider Australia. The party was registered on 4 July as Nick Xenophon's SA-BEST.
The independent John Darley left the management committee of the Nick Xenophon Team party on 17 August 2017 to avoid expulsion from the party. He said: "There are many things I could say as to why I have resigned. However, it is not my place to speak publicly about internal party matters". Though it was stated that there had been months of conflict between Darley and the party, it came to a head a week prior when Darley voted with the Labor government to back Legislative Council voting reforms. Xenophon indicated the resignation had averted Darley's imminent expulsion from the party due to "breaches to party rules". Nick Xenophon's SA-BEST therefore contested the 2018 election without state parliamentary representation.
The party submitted an application to change its name, abbreviation and logo to SA-BEST (Federal) to the Australian Electoral Commission in February 2018. The application was open for public objection until 7 March 2018 before a decision would be made, but on 9 April 2018 the Electoral Commission announced that the application had been withdrawn. Party supporters were advised on 10 April that a new application had been lodged to change the name to Centre Alliance. The application to change the name and logo was advertised for objection by the Australian Electoral Commission on 7 May 2018. Xenophon himself ceased to be directly involved with the party. The name and logo change were registered by the electoral commission on 8 June 2018.
In August 2020, Senator Rex Patrick left the party, and went on to form the Rex Patrick Team.
By 2025, the party only had one member, Rebekha Sharkie, who identifies as an Independent politician. Sharkie remains in the party, rather than becoming an independent politician, due to complexities around savings held within party bank accounts.
Political positions Centre Alliance is generally perceived as a social liberal, populist, and centrist. Some prominent party members are former Liberal Party members or staffers. Senator Rex Patrick was a staffer for Liberal Senator David Johnston before joining the party. Federal MP Rebekha Sharkie is also a former member of the Liberal Party and formerly worked as a researcher and staffer for Liberal party figures from 2006. At the 2016 Federal Election Rebekha Sharkie won the lower house seat of Mayo, previously a safe Liberal seat. Sharkie's win delivered the party's first and only seat in the House of Representatives.
In October 2020, Centre Alliance supported the government's university reform bill. The government stated that: “(the) reforms will create 30,000 (university) places next year, while cheaper fees in certain fields will deliver more graduates in areas of expected job growth”. The student cost of humanities, law and commerce degrees increased, while teaching, nursing, English, languages, maths, agriculture, science, health, architecture, environmental science, IT and engineering degrees decreased.
2016 federal election Candidates
The selection process for NXT candidates at the 2016 federal election was called "exhaustive", with senate candidate for South Australia and campaign manager Stirling Griff being largely responsible. In a later article, however, Richardson called it "a two-man team" of selectors (Griff and Xenophon). According to Griff, NXT aimed to field candidates that had "real life experience" as opposed to "celebrities [...] academics [...] [or] political groupies". These comments were reflected in the composition of NXT candidates for the election, with one third of them coming from a small business, grassroots background.
Xenophon confirmed in December 2014 that by mid-2015 Nick Xenophon Team would announce candidates in the South Australian Liberal seats of Sturt, Hindmarsh and Mayo, along with seats in all states and territories, and preference against the government in the upper house, at the 2016 federal election, with Xenophon citing the government's ambiguity on the Collins class submarine replacement project as motivation.
NXT fielded two senate candidates in every state, with four in South Australia. It fielded candidates in all eleven of the South Australian House of Representatives seats, along with Calare, Lindsay, Macarthur and Warringah in New South Wales, Groom and Moreton in Queensland and Higgins in Victoria.
Polling
In June 2014, polling in the seat of Sturt held by Christopher Pyne–a major figure in the Liberal Party–indicated that an NXT candidate would have beaten him 38% to 31% in primary vote. This was before Tony Abbott was replaced by Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister following the September 2015 Liberal leadership ballot. A January 2016 opinion poll conducted in South Australia by Roy Morgan found that NXT was slightly ahead of the Australian Labor Party, which was the opposition party to the governing Liberal Party of Australia. A February poll for the next South Australian Election indicated a similar amount of support (20.5%), but with NXT third behind Labor. ABC election analyst Antony Green believes that NXT could attract some 10-12% of the vote in the eastern states. Griff believes that a double dissolution election could see as many as six NXT senators elected. A 15 January 2016 article in the Sydney Morning Herald argued that NXT's debut national election had been undermined by the rise of Turnbull. However, polling conducted after the change of Prime Minister indicated NXT support had only fallen by 0.2% in votes for the lower house, while support rose by 4% in the Senate.
Multiple seat-level opinion polls in the South Australian rural Liberal seats of Mayo, Grey and Barker during the 2016 election campaign found NXT leading the Liberals on the two-candidate vote in all three seats. ABC psephologist Antony Green indicated NXT had a "strong chance of winning lower house seats and three or four Senate seats".
Relationship with the Liberal Party Centre Alliance has attracted strong criticism from the Liberal Party. In 2015, soon after becoming prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull intimated that NXT would struggle to overcome the deficiencies of its leader, adding "Nick’s track record to date is that when he last ran with a running mate, he and Ann Bressington split up". Education Minister Simon Birmingham attacked NXT candidate for the seat of Mayo, Rebekha Sharkie, for seeking the support of a farming group who had previously supported One Nation founder Pauline Hanson. Xenophon rejected these claims as the group in question had not endorsed One Nation, but merely spoke "at an event".
In 2016, Martin Hamilton-Smith, a former South Australian Liberal leader who had left the Liberal party, and at the time was an independent and part of the state Labor cabinet, declared his support for the NXT candidate Rebekha Sharkie in Mayo for the upcoming federal election. He said "I think Rebekha's a good candidate for Mayo, I live in Mayo so I want a candidate that's going to stick up for SA and the local district and I think she's the right person". He also stated that he was not considering a run with NXT in the future, rather believed that the NXT candidate was the best person for the job in his electorate. Sharkie's main opponent in Mayo, sitting Liberal member Jamie Briggs said, "I think what it reveals is you just can't trust these independents".
2016 election campaign
Primary vote % (SA 2016) Division of Mayo: 34.9% (won) Division of Barker: 29.1% Division of Grey: 27.8% Division of Sturt: 21.2% Division of Boothby: 20.7% Division of Wakefield: 20.4% Division of Port Adelaide: 18.7% Division of Kingston: 17.2% Division of Makin: 16.6% Division of Hindmarsh: 15.1% Division of Adelaide: 12.9% House (SA): 21.3% (1 seat won) Senate (SA): 21.7% (3 seats won) The nascent Nick Xenophon Team ran candidates at the Australian 2016 federal election for the upper house with two candidates in each of the six states, a candidate in all eleven lower house seats in South Australia, and additionally a candidate in seven lower house seats in three other states – Calare, Lindsay, Macarthur and Warringah in New South Wales, Groom and Moreton in Queensland, and Higgins in Victoria. As the election was a double dissolution the Senate electoral quota of 14.3 percent was reduced to 7.7 percent.
During the campaign, Xenophon and the NXT were the subject of numerous attacks from both major political parties. This included an attack levelled at his failure to declare a directorship of Adelaide Tower Pty Ltd, which involved his father. Xenophon accused proponents of this attack of a "partisan and personal campaign". Labor requested the Australian Electoral Commission investigate questionable loans given to Xenophon by businessman Ian Melrose.