By MICHAEL SLOVANOS
NINE Media, the bastion of mainstream Australian media, it’s TV and newspaper journalists funded to the hilt by every big corporate PC player, is in a panic over the South Australian Liberal Party and its “rebel senator” Alex Antic.
Antic appears poised to take over the presidency of the SA Libs in a vote on September 19th, and according to the “progressive” types at Nine Media and the “moderate” (read leftist) slab of the Liberal Party of Australia, that’s a no-no, because that would mean “the far right” taking control of an entire state Liberal apparatus.
There’s also been talk of a federal Liberal Party intervention. If the Libs were smart, they would also realize that Antic taking over the presidency would stem the flow of Liberal Party people to One Nation and give them a fighting chance at the next election.
The prominent SA Liberal “moderates” (read leftists) are senators Leah Blyth, Anne Ruston and Andrew McLachlan. Ruston was Minister for Families and Social Services in the Morrison government from 2019 to 2022. She has been a Senator for South Australia since 2012.
The trio, however, have dwindling support among the rising and dominant conservative faction behind Senator Antic. Blyth, in her maiden speech to the Senate, rattled off some conservative-sounding sentiment about the failings of the education system.
But when the test came with Albanese’s draconian Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Act 2026, Senator Blyth vacated herself from the chambers while Ruston and two other SA Liberal senators Andrew McLachlan and Kerryanne Liddle voted for it. Antic voted against it.
The term “moderate” is a real problem for the Liberals. A more appropriate term would be Teal, because that is probably where a considerable number of the sitting Liberal MPs and senators in Canberra and the states would prefer to be.
These Liberals don’t want to “sully themselves” around the “right wing” types seen in One Nation and probably the Nationals as well, just like the Teals don’t like to sully themselves around the hard-left unionists of the Labor Party or the “right wingers” of the Liberals. But Labor, the Greens, Teals and the Liberal moderates are basically a single leftist ideological bloc.
The moderate Liberals would probably agree with Anthony Albanese’s warning at the Queensland Labor Conference over the rise of “hard-right populists” who he said “pose a threat to democracy”. He specifically called out One Nation for “peddling dangerous, divisive and downright dishonest” politics.
If it’s divisive to pull Australia away from destructive globalist run deindustrialisation (aka “decarbonisation”), a CCP-style surveillance state, open-door immigration, a housing crisis, a bloated bureaucracy and enforced woke ideology, then divide we must.
Albanese and his Labor Party have failed this country woefully and it looks very much like the majority are waking up to this – if the big wins in the Farrer NSW and Mystery Bay WA by-elections are any indication.
Meanwhile down at Nine’s Sydney Morning Herald, political reporter Paul Sakkal was almost calling for the federal Liberals to intervene against Antic’s push for control of the SA branch.
Somehow, Sakkal figured that this would “stop Opposition Leader Angus Taylor from competing in the state at the next election as evidence emerges of an attempted purge of high-profile party members.”
“The party’s federal executive is expected to discuss the prospect of taking over the branch at a meeting on Friday in Canberra, according to several party sources familiar with the talks,” he wrote last month. The meeting did not make any public statement about that.
Sakka even dug up critics from within Antic’s his own Right faction, who claimed his supporters have been breaching governance rules by overturning the results of annual general meetings and pushing for the expulsion of former foreign minister Alexander Downer, former MP Nicolle Flint and former state MP Vickie Chapman.
“All three are viewed as critics of Antic, a far-right senator who consistently votes against Taylor’s wishes in Canberra and has repeatedly opened the door to joining Pauline Hanson’s One Nation,” Sakkal wrote. Cairns News asked Antic about joining One Nation and he said not any time soon.
“His colleagues fear he is pushing for closer collaboration with Hanson, as suggested by his ally, Barker MP Tony Pasin, who previously called for a seat-sharing deal with Hanson.
“Liberals close to Taylor, including party president Tony Abbott, have worked behind the scenes to prevent Antic from becoming South Australian president in an election next month. Moderates and right-wingers fear the prospect of the anti-vaccine, anti-abortion activist, MAGA-loving senator taking control.
“But some federal and South Australian MPs hold the view that Antic cannot be talked out of his mission to upend the party. They will push for the federal branch to take the reins in South Australia, as the party did after the NSW division failed to lodge applications for council candidates.”
Sakkal went on to explain how Antic’s leading numbers man, Dom Gelonese, wants some former MPs like the high-profile Alexander Downer expelled from the SA Liberal Party.
Gelonese is aware that the former UK ambassador (and British Intelligence asset) Downer discussed with FBI agents the prospect of Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. “We need to clean our house and remove those involved in fraudulent election interference activity,” Gelonese wrote.
Gelonese has also been pushing to remove Nicole Flint, who is mulling a preselection challenge against Pasin.
Talking about former state attorney-general and long-time Moderate Vicki Chapman, Gelonese said in November: “We need to pull the trigger on expelling Vicki. My understanding is that now they can’t federally intervene, so what’s the reason for not pulling the trigger?”
The Liberals’ federal president Tony Abbott responded to the push on Downer, telling the SMH: “Any Liberal wanting to expel Alexander Downer is crackers”, which sounds like a half serious deflection.
Gelonese’s campaign has been resisted by the remaining South Australian Liberals who are not aligned with Antic. They include serving party president Senator Blyth, who fell out with Antic after her failure to cross the floor on the post-Bondi hate crimes legislation.
Antic’s supporters allege that Blyth is pushing against Antic’s election so that she can avoid losing to a supporter of Antic at her upcoming preselection. They claim she is attempting to fast-track her preselection to protect herself.
Gelonese, responding to questions from Sakkal, did not deny the push to expel high-profile members.
“No party representative is immune from oversight when their conduct warrants it. Questions of expulsion belong inside the party, not splashed across the media by the professional victim-class within it,” he said, claiming Antic’s opponents were lashing out because they were losing.
“After a string of spectacular AGM thrashings, their grip is collapsing, so they’re frantically manufacturing excuses for federal intervention. Nothing says ‘we respect democracy’ quite like trying to overturn it the moment you lose.”
Gelonese’s story aligns with that of Professor Joanna Howe, who has an inside view of the Liberals due to her anti-abortion campaigning and who appeared on stage with Antic at an August 9th SA Liberals Women’s Council meeting. Howe and Antic received strong vocal support.
Howe more than anyone else is well aware of the ideological Left in the SA Liberals because they are the ones who support abortion and other leftist causes and include Michelle Lensink MLC, and Sam Talfer, Josh Teague, Jack Batty and Tim Whetstone in the Lower House.
Howe, in one of her recent vlogs, pointed out how the leftist weekly newspaper The Saturday Paper ran a promotion citing someone describing conservatives as “like a cancer in the Liberal Party” and pointing to an “exclusive story” claiming Tony Abbot and Peta Credlin control the Liberals and are responsible for their disastrous electoral performances.
Cairns News suggests these SA Lib “moderate malcontents” go join the Teals, where they probably would find a warm welcome. Abbot and Credlin are smart enough to read trends, and the SA Liberals are attempting to run with the most obvious trend, which is the global populist surge.
If the SA Libs do a partnership deal with One Nation, well good for them. It might well be an effective strategy to break the historical Labor/Liberal leftist grip on the state.
