Centre Alliance

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.[37] In a later article, however, Richardson called it "a two-man team" of selectors (Griff and Xenophon).[38] According to Griff, NXT aimed to field candidates that had "real life experience" as opposed to "celebrities [...] academics [...] [or] political groupies".[38] 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.[39]

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.[40]

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.[41]

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.[42] 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 is presently the opposition party to the governing Liberal Party of Australia.[43] A February poll for the next South Australian Election indicated a similar amount of support (20.5%), but with NXT third behind Labor.[44][45][46] ABC election analyst Antony Green believes that NXT could attract some 10-12% of the vote in the eastern states.[42] Griff believes that a double dissolution election could see as many as six NXT senators elected.[47] 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.[42] 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.[39]

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".[48]

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".[49] 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.[50] Xenophon rejected these claims as the group in question had not endorsed One Nation, but merely spoke "at an event".[50]

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".[51]

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.[52] 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".[53] Labor requested the Australian Electoral Commission investigate questionable loans given to Xenophon by businessman Ian Melrose.[54]

In the presence of NXT candidates in all eleven South Australian seats, both major parties recorded a suppressed primary vote, resulting in a reduction of the major party primary vote in all but one South Australian seat. Though Labor picked up a two-party swing in all eleven, NXT's presence produced a result where Kingston ended up as the only South Australian seat to record an increase to a major party primary vote. Kingston also recorded the highest major party primary vote of just 49 percent. In NXT's presence, no party won a majority of the primary vote in any of the eleven seats. NXT's lower house primary vote was highest in Mayo (34.9%) and lowest in Adelaide (12.9%). While Mayo has always polled strongest for minor parties, Adelaide's result is in contrast to 2007 where the Xenophon Senate ticket polled better in Adelaide than in most other seats.[55] NXT candidates in Barker[56] and Grey[57] both placed second to the Liberal incumbents and placed second in Port Adelaide to the Labor incumbent. NXT's South Australian lower house vote was 21.3 percent. NXT did not poll as highly in other states. The overall nationwide NXT primary vote was 3.3 percent (456,369 votes) in the Senate and 1.9 percent (250,333 votes) in the House.[58] Though NXT's South Australian Senate primary vote was reduced to 21.7 percent (–3.1 from 2013), the reduced Senate quota allowed more candidates to be successful.

In the end, three NXT senators and one lower house MP were elected. In the senate, Xenophon and Stirling Griff were elected to six-year terms, and Skye Kakoschke-Moore was elected for a three-year term; while Rebekha Sharkie won the lower house seat of Mayo.[59][60][61]

Xenophon resigned from the Senate in 2017 and was replaced by Rex Patrick. Kakoschke-Moore resigned from the Senate in 2017 and was replaced by Tim Storer, although Storer had resigned from the party at that stage, so sat as an independent.

• 
  Rebekha Sharkie MP (Mayo, SA) 2016–2018, 2018–present

• Senator Nick Xenophon (SA), 2008–2017; re-elected in 2013 and 2016, announced resignation in 2017
• Senator Skye Kakoschke-Moore (SA), 2016–2017; resigned in 2017 due to dual citizenship; previous spokesperson for mental health, veterans affairs, and women
• Senator Rex Patrick (SA), 2017–2020; defected from the party in August 2020 to sit as an independent, defeated at the 2022 federal election.
• Senator Stirling Griff (SA), 2016–2022; spokesperson for health, immigration and communications. Defeated at the 2022 federal election.

• John Darley MLC, 2007–2017 (re-elected in 2014, became an independent in 2017)[23]