History
Formation
The party was registered on 4 July 2017.[2] John Darley was the sole Nick Xenophon Team member in the South Australian Parliament until he left the party to become an independent on 17 August 2017.[3]
On 6 October 2017, Xenophon announced that he would be leaving the Federal Senate to contest the state seat of Hartley at the 2018 state election.[4] Xenophon resigned from the Senate on 31 October 2017.
At its 2018 annual general meeting,[when?] the South Australian party officially changed its name from Nick Xenophon's SA-Best to SA-Best.
In late 2017, NSW-BEST, VIC-BEST, WA-BEST, QLD-BEST and NT-BEST were registered as business names, leading to speculation that the party would expand interstate.[5] However, as of 2022, none of these have formed political parties.
2018 South Australian election
In the March 2018 South Australian election, SA-Best contested thirty-six seats in the South Australian House of Assembly and put forward four candidates for the upper house. The party charged candidates $1,000 to be considered for pre-selection, and a further $20,000 for running in the lower house, or a further $40,000 in the upper house, as well as fund their own local campaign.[citation needed][6]
The thirty-six House of Assembly seats contested were:
Badcoe,
Chaffey,
Cheltenham,
Colton,
Croydon,
Davenport,
Dunstan,
Elder,
Elizabeth,
Enfield,
Finniss,
Gibson,
Giles,
Hammond,
Hartley,
Heysen,
Hurtle Vale,
Kavel,
King,
Lee,
Mackillop,
Mawson,
Morialta,
Morphett,
Mount Gambier,
Narungga,
Newland,
Playford,
Port Adelaide,
Ramsay,
Reynell,
Schubert,
Taylor,
Unley,
Waite, and
Wright.[7][8][9][10][11][12]
The party failed to secure any lower house seats,[13] although there was a close contest in the historically safe Liberal seat of Heysen.[14] Xenophon unsuccessfully contested Hartley and although he came second on the primary vote ahead of Labor's Grace Portolesi by 202 votes, the preference distribution of the eliminated fourth-placed Greens candidate turned Xenophon's 99-vote lead over Portolesi into a 357-vote deficit. Third-placed Xenophon was therefore eliminated, with Hartley reverting to the traditional Liberal vs Labor contest.[15][16] The party came second on primary votes in ten seats; the strongest results were in Chaffey, Finniss, and Hartley, where the party received over 25%.[16][17][18]
In the upper house, SA-Best received 19.3% of the voted, securing two seats, with the election of Connie Bonaros and Frank Pangallo.[19][20]
2022 South Australian election
At the 2022 South Australian election, SA-Best had one lower house candidate (in the seat of Giles), and two upper house candidates. The party received approximately 1.1% of the upper house vote, and no candidates were elected.
Upper house members are elected for eight-year terms; as such, Bonaros and Pangallo’s terms will expire in 2026.
In December 2023, Frank Pangallo left the SA-Best party.[21]
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