Election 2016: Nick Xenophon Team 'unpredictable', 'crackpots', Labor's Tanya Plibersek says

Updated

Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek has taken aim at the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT), calling some of its candidates a "rag-tag bunch of crackpots".

Senator Nick Xenophon is currently at odds with the major parties over preferences, saying it does not make sense for them not to advise their supporters to preference him ahead of one another.

The attack came as NXT lodged a complaint with the Australian Electoral Commission about the Liberal Party's how-to-vote cards, which Senator Xenophon describes as misleading.

Ms Plibersek suggested yesterday that some of the NXT's candidates were considered liabilities by the party itself.

"The real concern I think for many South Australians is that Nick Xenophon has a bunch of candidates that are so unusual in their views and so unpredictable that they are barred by their party constitution from speaking up about the issues that they care about," she said.

She said Labor had tried unsuccessfully to do deals with the NXT on a range of issues in the event of a minority government.

"A strong industrial relations system, driving new jobs and jobs growth in South Australia. We have tried to talk about these issues with the party and we haven't been successful in being able to come to an arrangement with them," she said.

NXT candidate for the seat of Grey, Andrea Broadfoot, has hit back at Ms Plibersek's "crackpot" comment, saying she was once hired under a Labor Government.

"I was one of two people in South Australia who was contracted to the Federal Government as one of their local employment co-ordinators to work on place-based solutions to the Global Financial Crisis and that was under the Labor Government," Ms Broadfoot said.

Attacks tipped to get more personal and negative

Senator Xenophon said the attack showed the major parties were worried.

"I expect to see more of the same, for it to be more personal, more negative," Senator Xenophon said.

"It is unusual for the major parties to be so obsessed and personal against a fledgling new party but it is not unexpected, because so many Australians have switched off from the toxic tribal politics of Liberal and Labor.

"My fellow candidates are a really decent bunch of real people, not party hacks, who are working with me, supporting me on issues that really matter to Australians, especially jobs and the future of manufacturing and farming, predatory gambling and cleaning up our political system."

Polls suggest NXT is in with a chance in the several electorates including Mayo, Sturt and Grey and is posted to gain as many as three Senate seats.

Senator Xenophon said the party's candidates often spoke out on a range of issues.

He also revealed the party has complained to the electoral commission about the Liberal Party's how-to-vote cards labelled with "NXT preference", which put Family First and Liberal Democrats ahead of NXT.

"I'm hoping there will be some ruling sooner rather than later because I'm concerned that voters going to pre-polls are being misled," he said.

"The way it is being presented without setting out who the other parties [are] that the Liberal Party is suggesting people vote for ahead of us is I think fundamentally misleading. It is too clever by half."

Topics: government-and-politics, states-and-territories, federal-elections, elections, adelaide-5000, sa

First posted