Alex Antic | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Senator for South Australia | |
| Assumed office 1 July 2019 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Alexander Charles Antic 1974 (age 49–50) Adelaide, South Australia, Australia |
| Political party | Liberal |
| Alma mater | University of Adelaide |
| Profession | Lawyer, politician |
Alexander Charles Antic (born 1974) is an Australian politician who has been a senator for South Australia since 2019 representing the Liberal Party.
Antic was born in Adelaide in 1974, the son of Vicki Anderson and Ratomir Antic. In his maiden speech to parliament he stated his belief that he was the first Australian senator of Serbian descent. His father arrived in Australia from Yugoslavia in 1957 and eventually became director of thoracic medicine at Royal Adelaide Hospital. [1]
Antic holds arts and law degrees from the University of Adelaide. [1] Before entering politics he was a senior associate with Tindall Gask Bentley lawyers. [2] He served on the Adelaide City Council from 2014 to 2018, representing the south ward. [3] In this role he publicly argued that local governments must concentrate on the delivery of services, rather than "being used as a vehicle for identity politics." [4] He also used his position on the council to press for the preservation of Australia Day. [5]
Antic is aligned with the National Right faction of the Liberal Party. [6] [7]
Antic was elected to the Australian Senate at the 2019 federal election, taking office on 1 July 2019. [8] [9] In the Liberal preselection process he had out-polled sitting senator Lucy Gichuhi, a fellow member of the party's conservative faction. [10] [11]
In his maiden speech in September 2019 Antic spoke of his support for the development of an Australian nuclear power industry. [12] He also lambasted “the tyranny of political correctness”, and criticised the push towards developing renewable sources of energy. [13] In November 2019 he opposed moves to decriminalise prostitution in South Australia, stating that sex workers were being exploited and that it was hypocritical to support decriminalisation while opposing the use of grid girls at the Australian Grand Prix and Clipsal 500. [14]
In November 2021, Antic was one of five Coalition senators who voted in support of One Nation’s COVID‑19 Vaccination Status (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill 2021, against the government's position. [15] [16]
In December 2021, it was alleged that Antic misled Prime Minister Scott Morrison about his COVID-19 vaccination status after Morrison claimed Antic had been double-vaccinated during a radio interview. [17] Antic returned to Adelaide from Canberra having obtained a travel exemption for unvaccinated persons – the exemption having only been granted on appeal on the condition he spent 14 days in quarantine at a Medi-hotel – but on arrival he allegedly refused to provide his vaccination status to officials at Adelaide Airport, and then posted a video to social media claiming he had been "detained by overzealous bureaucrats" in what he called a "political stunt". [18]
In a Senate estimates hearing in November 2022, Antic accused the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) of "grooming children with [...] adult content" over a Play School segment that featured drag queen Courtney Act reading a children's book. [19] In response, Act stated that "to use terms of abuse when no abuse is actually happening, really takes away from the occasions when it is happening [...] I'm on television, reading a children’s book, there was nothing untoward about it. It was really quite a shocking thing to be accused of". [20] [21]
Antic is aligned with the right faction within the South Australian Liberals [22] and has moved further to the right. He appears regularly on Sky News Australia [13] and has been a guest on far-right programs, including Steve Bannon’s podcast. He was set to be the MC for a speaking tour of Donald Trump Jr before it was cancelled, and was a guest at a forum with disgraced former Hillsong preacher Pat Mesiti. [23] [24] [25]
In March 2024, Antic defeated Liberal moderate and Shadow Health Minister Anne Ruston, to lead the South Australian Liberal senate ticket in 2025. When asked about taking the position of a woman, given the Liberals' low number of women in parliament, Antic responded that “the ‘gender card’ is nothing but a grievance narrative”. [26]
Antic’s success in securing the top spot on the ticket led to criticism from other South Australian Liberals. [27] [13]
Former fellow councillors Anne Moran and (now Greens MLC) Rob Simms said that they had been aligned and got on well on the Adelaide City Council, but that his politics had shifted since then. Moran said that undermining Ruston was a “pointless exercise” and "foolish politics". [13]
Richard Mansell Colbeck is an Australian politician. He has been a Senator for Tasmania since 2018, representing the Liberal Party, and served a previous term in the Senate from 2002 to 2016. Colbeck served as the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services and Minister for Sport in the Second Morrison Ministry from December 2020 until May 2022, following the appointment of the Albanese ministry. Previous to this, he was the Minister for Aged Care and Minister for Youth and Sport since May 2019.
Concetta Anna Fierravanti-Wells is an Australian politician who was a Senator for New South Wales from 2005 to 2022, representing the Liberal Party. She served as Minister for International Development and the Pacific in the Turnbull government from 2016 to 2018. She grew up in Port Kembla, New South Wales, and, prior to entering politics, worked as a lawyer and policy adviser.
David Julian Fawcett is an Australian Liberal Party politician who has been a Senator for South Australia since 2011. Fawcett served in the Morrison government as Assistant Minister for Defence from 2018 to 2019.
Simon John Birmingham is an Australian politician who has been a Senator for South Australia since 2007. A member of the Liberal Party, he served in the Morrison government as Minister for Finance from 2020 to 2022 and as Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment from 2018 to 2020. He previously served as Minister for Education and Training in the Turnbull government from 2015 to 2018, and as a parliamentary secretary and assistant minister in the Abbott government.
Nola Bethwyn Marino is an Australian politician who has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2007, representing the Division of Forrest in Western Australia. She is a member of the Liberal Party and served as the Assistant Minister for Regional Development and Territories from 2019 until May 2022, following the appointment of the Albanese ministry. Marino previously served as Chief Government Whip from 2015 to 2019.
Sarah Moya Henderson is an Australian politician, lawyer and former journalist. She has been a Senator for Victoria since September 2019, representing the Liberal Party. She previously held the Division of Corangamite in the House of Representatives from 2013 to 2019.
Dean Anthony Smith is an Australian politician and Liberal Party member of the Australian Senate since 2012, representing Western Australia.
Anne Sowerby Ruston is an Australian politician who served as Minister for Families and Social Services in the Morrison government from 2019 to 2022. She has been a Senator for South Australia since 2012.
James Anthony McGrath is an Australian politician and Senator for Queensland since 2014. He is a member of the Liberal National Party of Queensland and sits with the Liberal Party in federal parliament. Following his re-election in 2022, McGrath was appointed as Shadow Assistant Minister for Finance and Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition.
Linda Karen Reynolds is an Australian politician. She is a member of the Liberal Party and has served as a Senator for Western Australia since 2014. She held senior ministerial office as a cabinet minister in the Morrison government from 2019 to 2022.
Andrew Lockhart McLachlan is an Australian politician who has been a Senator for South Australia since 6 February 2020, representing the Liberal Party of Australia. He was previously a member of the South Australian Legislative Council, having been elected at the 2014 state election, and was subsequently elected President of the South Australian Legislative Council in May 2018. He resigned as president and member of the Legislative Council in February 2020, to take up the vacant seat in the Senate caused by the resignation of Cory Bernardi.
Jonathon Roy Duniam is an Australian politician. He is a member of the Liberal Party and has served as a Senator for Tasmania since the 2016 federal election. He served as an assistant minister in the Morrison government from 2019 until May 2022, following the appointment of the Albanese ministry. Prior to entering parliament Duniam was a political staffer, including as deputy chief of staff to Tasmanian premier Will Hodgman.
William Edward Slade Brockman is an Australian politician who has served as a Senator for Western Australia since 2017, representing the Liberal Party. He was elected President of the Australian Senate in October 2021 following the resignation of Scott Ryan.
Wendy Anne Askew is an Australian politician who is a Senator for Tasmania, representing the Liberal Party. She was appointed to a casual vacancy on 6 March 2019 in place of her brother David Bushby.
James William Stevens is the Liberal Party member of the Australian House of Representatives for the Division of Sturt in South Australia. He was elected in the 2019 Australian federal election, replacing the retiring Liberal member, Christopher Pyne. Stevens previously served as the Chief of Staff to Steven Marshall, the former Premier of South Australia, and prior to that as the General Manager of Michell Australia.
Paul Martin Scarr is an Australian politician and lawyer who was elected as a Senator for Queensland at the 2019 federal election. He is a member of the Liberal National Party of Queensland and sits with the Liberal Party in federal parliament.
David Allan Van is an Australian politician. He was elected as a member of the Liberal Party and was sworn in as a federal senator representing the state of Victoria on 1 July 2019.
Matthew Anthony O'Sullivan is an Australian politician. He has been a Liberal Party of Australia member of the Australian Senate since 2019.
The Moderates, also known as Modern Liberals, Small-L Liberals or Liberal Left, are members, supporters, voters and a faction of the Australian Liberal Party who are typically fiscally conservative, but progressive on social and environmental policies. They compete with the Liberal Party's other two major factions: The National Right and the Centre Right.
Kerrynne Liddle is an Australian politician and the first Indigenous federal member of parliament from South Australia. She is an Arrernte woman and member of the Liberal Party. She was elected to the Senate on the party's ticket in South Australia at the 2022 federal election, to a term beginning on 1 July 2022. She was a journalist and corporate manager before entering politics.
New elected members: Lord Mayor: Martin Haese; Area: Robert Simms; North: Philip Martin; Central: David Slama; South: Alex Antic; South: Priscilla Corbell