Liberal Senator Alex Antic Keeps One Nation Door Ajar

Conservative Liberal Party Senator Alex Antic has not ruled out defecting to One Nation after Labor’s massive win at the state election.

Incumbent Premier Peter Malinauskas won in a landslide on March 21, even securing several centre-right Liberal Party seats despite a 2 percent swing away from his party.

Antic revealed he had yet to speak with One Nation leader Pauline Hanson about joining the party.

“I don’t rule anything out yet because it’s stupid to do so and times change. I haven’t had a conversation with Pauline, I just haven’t,” he said on Sky News Australia.

“But I am a Liberal, I have joined as a Liberal, I have no intention of going anywhere, but as I keep saying, the answer to that is not yet.”

Any move by Antic to the conservative-leaning One Nation, which has a staunch policy against high immigration and net zero, would likely hand control of the South Australian (SA) Liberals to the moderate factions.

Antic currently has a large say on the internal pre-selection of candidates due to the control his right faction has over the party’s State Executive and State Council.

Meanwhile, the senator also continued his push for the Liberals to swing more towards the right and conservative policies.

“It will resonate with voters when it returns to being the party of Menzies,” he said.

Antic previously crossed the floor in the Senate on issues like opposing the under-16 social media ban, COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and anti-hate speech laws.

Meanwhile, the moderate faction’s Anne Ruston expressed confidence in current SA Liberal leader Ashton Hurn would remain in charge.

Ruston said Hurn “passed the test” as leader before the final results had filtered through on election night on ABC.

“I think she will save the furniture,” Ruston said.

State of Play So Far

So far, One Nation has secured 22.4 percent of the overall primary vote—one in five voters—second after the Labor Party who has 38.1 percent of the vote. The Liberals garnered just 19.2 percent of votes followed by the Greens on 10.4 percent.

After the distribution of preferences, Labor ended up winning 32 seats, the Liberal’s four, independents two, and One Nation one so far.

Eight seats remain undecided.

At the time of writing, One Nation is leading in three, the Liberal Party holds advantage in two, followed by the independents (two), and Labor (one).

In the upper house, the Legislative Council, One Nation has secured two upper house seats with a likely third, while Labor has gained four, the Liberal’s two, and Greens one.

Despite the victory, South Australian Premier Malinauskas sounded a warning to his federal counterparts.

“We’re going to treat this seriously. I don’t think One Nation, or any political party for that matter, should be written off.”