SA election: Liberals’ dance with the Greens ‘must end today’, says Alex Antic

SA Liberal senator Alex Antic has offered an eviscerating critique of his party’s failure at the state election, saying the dance with policies mimicking the Labor and the Greens ‘must end today’.

Liberal senator Alex Antic. Picture: AAP

Liberal South Australian senator Alex Antic has offered an eviscerating critique of his party’s failure at the state election, saying that policies mimicking Labor and the Greens “must end today”.

Post-election recriminations have begun after Steven Marshall’s one-term Liberal government was turfed from office on Saturday after significant swings across the state. Labor leader Peter Malinauskas’s easy victory has led many SA Liberals to question the party’s policy direction.

In a letter to party members, obtained by The Australian, Senator Antic said SA people had been let down by a Liberal government that “failed to adhere to its core principles”, reflected in the Marshall-led government’s “egregious social policy agenda”.

“The Liberal Party of SA has spent the last four years trying to dance with Labor and Greens voters while the quiet South Australians … who have loyally supported our party, sat on the sidelines wondering why they bothered to turn up,” he wrote. “That mindset must end today.”

The increase to the state’s land tax rate, failure to advocate for the business and hospitality sectors and confining the Adelaide 500 to the “dustbin of history” were all cited by Senator Antic, a member of the party’s conservative faction, as reasons for the party’s failure.

The existence of minor parties on the Liberal’s right flank – such as the Liberal Democrats, One Nation and United Australia Party – was an “indictment” on the party’s ability to cater for conservative voices, he said.

His analysis reflected the view of federal colleague Tony Pasin, the member for Barker, who called for some re-elected Liberal state MPs to resign, enabling the party to undertake “generational change”.

“There are some people elected on the weekend who … will need to consider whether they are likely to be part of the team in four years and the years after that; if they’re not, they might need to consider what’s in the best interests of the Liberal Party,” he told ABC Adelaide.

Opposition health spokesman Mark Butler played down expectations of Labor picking up a raft of federal seats in SA, but said there was a “strong lesson” from the state poll. “There clearly is something happening in SA … and our research confirms a lot of that has to do with Scott Morrison personally,” he told ABC radio.