In the wake of the Liberal Party’s election loss on Saturday, Liberal senator for South Australia, Alex Antic, has stated that his party needs to stop catering to the left side of politics and return to the centre-right, where the Liberal Party values lie.
“We are not the party of capitulation to net-zero. We should not be the party of vaccine mandates, although I accept that they weren’t a Commonwealth issue, but across the country, Liberal state governments like mine here effectively endorsed those.”
Antic added that the Liberals are supposed to be about individual choice and freedom of speech.
“We’ve all heard those hackneyed lines a million times before, but the time is now to understand that the Liberal Party’s experiment with the poison of leftism and progressivism must be over,” he said.
“I think we’ve seen the writing on the wall there.”
The senator was disappointed by the comments of former finance minister Simon Birmingham, who, in an ABC interview on Sunday, suggested that views expressed by Warringah Liberal election candidate Katherine Deeves against transgender athletes in women’s sport were not aligned with what Australians believe.
“In the case of Warringah, we’ve all seen the issues that played out there. I think it sends a message about what Australians believe when it comes to issues of respect, of inclusion, of diversity,” Birmingham said.
“And that message is that Australians want people to respect their lives, but they also have a strong and profound respect for the lives of others and the circumstances of others.
“And I fear the impact in Warringah may have had something of a contagion effect on candidates in adjacent Liberal seats that do hold the right values but maybe paying a very dear price for that seat,” he said.
Antic said that to say the views of Katherine Deeves were a form of contagion that had spread throughout the electorate was “nonsense”.
“That is just completely and utterly wrong,” he said.
Antic emphasised that most of the Liberals who lost their seats in the election were people who were trying to appease the left, particularly in regards to climate, only to see it backfire.
He believes constituents want to see a leader who stays true to their values when they represent their community and used the example of Tony Pasin, the member for Barker in South Australia.
“He has been a strong advocate for his community, but his values have remained sound,” he said.
“The combination of hard work and good values and local engagement delivered a great result. He might even have the safest seat in the country now as a result of that.”
“I think he’s only lost a percent or two, or very little,” Antic said.
Antic noted that a similar situation was also seen in South Australia’s recent state election, where good local candidates who were listening to their constituents were elected.
Meanwhile, Birmingham told the ABC that on the issue of climate change, while a future Liberal government would still have to ensure they are responsible for Australia’s total national interests, they also need to ensure Australians understand the Party acknowledges the science of climate change.
“Some of us always have, but all of us must,” he said.
