SA Liberals investigating alleged privacy breach after anonymous email in membership row

A hunt is underway for the writer of an anonymous email that used secret Liberal party members lists to slam a campaign to recruit hundreds of conservative Christians.

The Liberal Party State Executive is investigating the alleged misuse of its contact lists after an anonymous email was sent to hundreds of its members.

The Advertiser understands some members have alleged the confidential lists – which contain the home addresses, phone numbers and email accounts of current and former Liberal state and federal ministers, MPs and party members – have been improperly accessed or leaked to an unauthorised person.

It came after hundreds of members mid last week received an email from a person only known as “nothappyjan2021,” who strongly criticised a recent recruitment drive by the party’s conservative faction.

Liberal Senator Alex Antic spearheaded a recruitment drive that sparked a row over an influx of right wing Christian members to the party. Picture: Morgan Sette

Members have raised concerns about the alleged privacy breach with the state executive.

“It is with great regret that we feel we need to lodge this formal complaint in relation to what appears to be a breach of our personal confidentiality, by the provision of our personal email address to an independent, unknown party to us,” one member wrote.

They went on to say that maintaining members’ confidentiality was “paramount to maintaining a committed and viable membership, which is so important to the running of our great party”.

Another member challenged the anonymous author of the email to reveal their identity.

“You are a coward. Please grow a spine and resend this with your actual name on it,” they wrote.

Liberal Party state director Sascha Meldrum confirmed an inquiry was underway into the “alleged misuse of party lists”.

Tensions within the party have been escalating after the state executive last week refused the membership applications of 150 conservative Christians and demanded 400 others who had already become members this year sign statutory declarations to prove they would toe the line.

Senior Liberals said the state executive took the action after it was confronted with allegations that new members were going to campaign against endorsed candidates at the next election.

Liberal senator Alex Antic spearheaded the recruitment of the conservative Christians.

On Thursday evening, the party revoked its requirement that the new members sign a statutory declaration and instead launched an investigation into allegations and issues relating to the membership process.