Straight-talking Nick Xenophon is focused on populist policies. Picture: Darren Galwey/The Australian

The populist thorn in the side of the two main parties is happy to talk about his deliberately commonsense policies, but snaps when asked about what voters like about him.

“I don’t have time for psychoanalysis,” he told news.com.au. “I’m just true to myself. People know I’ll try to be fair. I get it wrong from time to time but I try to be fair.”

When Malcolm Turnbull was asked about his qualities by Sarah Ferguson on Four Corners this Monday, he reeled off a list: “Endurance. Resilience. Openness to new ideas.”

Bill Shorten also noted his virtues: “I never give up. I respect people to my core. I’m a listener.”

But Australian-born Greek-Cypriot Xenophon won’t even talk up his chances in the election.

“I don’t know, I’ve never done this before in a national campaign,” he says. “The opinion polls are predicting three seats in the Senate in South Australia, some polls are saying there’s a chance in one or two other states.”

He’s even polling at seven or eight per cent in the lower house seats of Lindsay and Macarthur, making Labor deeply unhappy after he refused to allocate preferences. “It’s an open ticket because I think voters are much smarter than the Liberal and Labor parties give them credit for,” he’s said.

Senator Xenophon insists he “surprised everyone” when he was elected to the upper house in 1997, and that as a lawyer-turned-politician “I belong to not one, but two of the most hated occupations in the country!”

Senator Xenophon’s self-deprecation comes with a keen sense of the issues that speak to the electorate — from food labelling laws, to breaking up the supermarkets duopoly and ensuring consumers and small businesses get a good deal on electricity.

The Senator insists he doesn’t favour either of the two main parties. Picture: Tom HuntleySource:News Corp Australia

“People are worried about their jobs, their children getting jobs, the collapse of manufacturing and the auto sector,” he says. “Aged care funding cuts, which both main parties support, people are concerned about Australia-made … and foreign ownership of land.”

The 57-year-old first stood for the Senate on a single-issue, no-pokies platform, before launching his party in 2014. He remains passionate about the twin scourges of gambling and ice addiction sweeping regional Australia.

“A vote for me and my team is a vote for accountability,” he says. “I try and get better, reasonable solutions and be pragmatic.”

He’s unfazed by the Prime Minister calling a vote for the Nick Xenophon Team and other independents “a vote for instability”, insisting that he likes the PM and is ready to work constructively with him.

The crowd-pleasing senator has endured a series of attacks from both main parties, but their sneers at his centrist policies — with former Liberal leader John Hewson dismissing him as “just a populist” — play right into his hands.

“This is what political elites do,” Xenophon says. “They use populist as a perjorative term.”

Xenophon is more annoyed at ex-prime minister John Howard comparing him to Pauline Hanson after his attacks on free trade deals.

“That is a below the belt accusation,” he says. “I don’t share Hanson’s views on migration, race, religion. The political elite are trying to smear by association.”

He hit back over attacks from Labor and SA Unions over his stance on penalty rates after his campaign manager Stirling Griff told ABC radio weekend penalty rates were too high, calling the ALP TV ads claiming he planned to cut rates “a massive lie”.

Humble Nick appeared GQ’s June edition posing James Bond-style but wearing a Target suit and Lowes shoes. Picture: Jordan Graham/GQ AustraliaSource:Supplied

Then there was what he called an “embarrassing oversight” when he failed to declare his directorship of a company run by his father that had owed $2.5 million to the tax office and developed apartments that were illegally sublet by international students.

He now says he regrets falling on his sword, since he intitially disclssed the directorship and it was only that the “subsequent update wasn’t there” adding that the “whole campaign was built on a false assumption.”

Sen Xenophon is excellent at bouncing back. “This has been driven by partisan, personal attacks on me from the main parties,” he maintains. “It’s been a very nasty campaign.”

He has plenty of practised lines about “toxic politics”, playing on people’s disillusionment with the Labor-Liberal duopoly.

“Those that throw mud lose ground,” is today’s slogan, which he says he spotted on a church.

Another gleeful favourite is picturing the two leaders standing across a table shouting at each other “but underneath they’re playing footsie.”

Then there’s his best: “I believe in trying to bring together, not tear apart. My greatest success has been bringing the two main political parties together.”

It’s a persuasive image, but he stops short of going against Labor and Liberals on many policies where they meet, supporting offshore processing, for example. And while he says he would urge the PM to reconsider a marriage equality plebiscite because he thinks the money could be better spent, he “won’t lock himself in” to campaigning against one just yet.

If he picks up four seats in the Senate, as he’s predicted to do, this man could hold the balance of power and be more important in Australian politics than ever. But he won’t be blowing his own trumpet.

“I’m saying what I believe,” he says, “and fortunately, a lot of people are listening.”

emma.reynolds@news.com.au