Alex Antic

Alexander Charles Antic (born 1974) is an Australian politician who has been a senator for South Australia since 2019 representing the Liberal Party.

Early life and education

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.

Antic holds arts and law degrees from the University of Adelaide. Before entering politics he was a senior associate with Tindall Gask Bentley lawyers. He served on the Adelaide City Council from 2014 to 2018, representing the south ward. In that role, he argued that local governments must concentrate on the delivery of services, rather than "being used as a vehicle for identity politics". He also used his position on the council to press for the preservation of Australia Day.

Parliament

Antic was elected to the Australian Senate at the 2019 federal election, taking office on 1 July 2019. In the Liberal preselection process, he had out-polled sitting senator Lucy Gichuhi, a fellow member of the party's conservative faction.

In September 2023, Antic joined a cross-party delegation of Australian MPs to Washington, D.C., to lobby the U.S. Department of Justice to abandon its attempts to extradite Australian publisher Julian Assange from the United Kingdom. The other members were Barnaby Joyce, Monique Ryan, David Shoebridge, Peter Whish-Wilson and Tony Zappia.

In March 2024, Antic defeated Liberal moderate and Shadow Health Minister Anne Ruston, to gain the leading position on the South Australian Liberal senate ticket for the 2025 Australian federal election. When asked about taking the position from a woman, given the Liberals' low number of women in parliament, Antic responded that “the ‘gender card’ is nothing but a grievance narrative”. Antic’s success in securing the top spot on the ticket led to criticism from other South Australian Liberals. 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 Antic's politics had shifted since then. Moran said that undermining Ruston was a "pointless exercise" and "foolish politics".

Political views

Antic is aligned with the right faction within the South Australian Liberals, and, during the Morrison government, was identified with the National Right faction of the Liberal Party. He appears regularly on Sky News Australia 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.

In his maiden speech in September 2019, Antic spoke of his support for the development of an Australian nuclear power industry. He also lambasted “the tyranny of political correctness”, and criticised the push towards developing renewable sources of energy. In November 2019, he opposed moves to decriminalise sex work 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.

In 2024, Antic voted against the Australian Government's proposed legislation to ban children under 16 from social media. He was the only Liberal Party member who voted against it.

COVID-19 Vaccination

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.

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. 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. However, 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".

LGBT

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. 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".

In late 2023, Antic proposed a bill to ban gender reassignment surgery and treatment for teenagers.

References

External links

Alex Antic: Senate Candidate for SA

{{DEFAULTSORT:Antic, Alexander
1974 births
Living people
Australian people of Serbian descent
University of Adelaide alumni
Politicians from Adelaide
21st-century Australian politicians
South Australian local councillors
Australian conspiracy theorists
Members of the Australian Senate for South Australia
Liberal Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia