Senator Alex Antic uses parliamentary privilege to name Adelaide City Council candidate involved in alleged scam

Rogue Liberal Senator Alex Antic has used parliamentary privilege to name the Adelaide City Council candidate at the centre of an alleged voter scam.

Adelaide City Council candidate Jing Li (wearing a red tie) at a Chinese consulate dinner this year. Picture: Supplied.

Liberal Senator Alex Antic has used parliamentary privilege to name the candidate at the centre of an alleged voter scam in the Adelaide City Council election.

Mr Antic named Central Ward candidate Jing Li as the person who has allegedly had supporters collect blank ballot papers from four city apartments home to a large number of international students, as revealed by The Advertiser last week.

Mr Li denied the accusation – as he had already done last week when The Advertiser chose not to name him – and said he was “unsure why people are targeting me”.

“The electoral commission is conducting an investigation, so I await the result,” Mr Li said.

During Senate estimates on Tuesday, Mr Antic asked the Australian Electoral Commissioner, Tom Rogers, on his knowledge of Mr Li’s involvement in the alleged scam being investigated by the SA branch.

“Is the AEC aware of students that have been coerced to enrol in local government elections for a particular candidate Mr Jing Li?” Mr Antic asked.

“Is the AEC aware of any allegations during the elections where students were instructed to provide their ballots to volunteers or vote-harvesting mules at a prescribed time so they can be opened, filled in and cast in support of Mr Li?”

Mr Rogers told the Finance and Public Administration Estimates Committee he was “broadly aware of some reporting but not to the level of that specificity”.

The Advertiser had revealed residents of Vision, Realm, Kodo and Penny Place apartments were understood to have been targeted by supporters of a Central Ward candidate, with a photo showing two men holding a wad of ballot papers.

Two people with ballot papers outside the Vision Apartment building. Picture: Supplied

Conservative Liberal Senator Alex Antic. Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

The papers contained voting slips for the Central Ward’s 14 candidates and five lord mayoral candidates, with many of them signing a letter to SA Electoral Commissioner Mick Sherry calling for the investigation outcome to be made public ahead of Saturday’s count.

Mr Antic added he “understood” international students caught up in the alleged scam “are considered to be too scared to give evidence”.

He asked whether the Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce – which includes Home Affairs, Defence and Australian Federal Police experts and gives assistance to elections to ensure they are unaffected by interference – was being used for SA local government elections and if there was any risk of “foreign interference”.

Mr Rogers replied it was “not unusual for the taskforce to provide support to both state and local government elections when requested”.

The Electoral Commission SA did not provide a comment.