Video has emerged of a fiery South Australian Liberal Party meeting involving outspoken right-wing Senator Alex Antic on stage with a controversial anti-abortion activist as they clashed with moderate members including the state’s former deputy premier.
On Tuesday evening members of the Liberal Women’s Council in SA held their annual general meeting where anti-abortion campaigner Joanna Howe took part in a panel discussion appearing alongside Senator Antic.
Senator Antic, a powerful conservative voice on the Liberal backbench in Federal Parliament is pushing to become the party’s president in South Australia which has been historically dominated by moderates.
The Women’s Council, which gets 13 votes in the election of the party’s next State president is widely expected to back Senator Antic for the position when a ballot is held later this month.
Posting on social media on Wednesday night, Dr Howe shared “dramatic leaked footage” of the gathering which she claimed showed how former deputy premier and attorney-general Vickie Chapman was “now completely out of touch with the Liberal grassroots”.
“Vickie Chapman, who legalised abortion up to birth in South Australia still thought she had the relevance, power and clout within the Liberal Party to stop me filming my chat with Alex Antic at the Liberal Women’s Council meeting”.
“It did not go down well for Vickie Chapman,” she said of the one-time South Australian deputy premier whom she described as “radically pro-abortion”.
In the video posted online Ms Chapman is shown objecting to the meeting being filmed saying: “I’ve never in the 50-odd years I’ve been working with the Liberal Party known of any other of our meetings being filmed.”
Dr Howe was given approval to record her onstage appearance with Senator Antic to then broadcast it on her YouTube channel, but a bid by Ms Chapman to prevent the filming was reportedly voted down at the meeting 200 votes to seven.
After Ms Chapman’s failed bid to stop the filming, Dr Howe then criticises her on stage, and reportedly also took swipes at Federal conservative Liberal figures such as Andrew Hastie, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Angus Taylor.
“My message to Vickie Chapman might be you’ve not seen this in 50 years — well times have changed Vickie!” Dr Howe says in the “leaked” video she posted online.
In a subsequent social media post on Thursday, the Professor of Law at the University of Adelaide declared “the tide is turning” inside the South Australian branch of the Liberal Party.
“Huge congratulations to Senator Antic for his bold, courageous work over many years to remake the Liberal Party after the appalling leftist reign of Stephen Marshall and Vickie Chapman,” Dr Howe wrote.
Ms Chapman became South Australia’s first female deputy premier and attorney-general in 2018 under the Liberal government led by Steven Marshall, where she served until 2022.
The South Australian Labor Party has sprung to the former Liberal frontbencher’s defence, praising Ms Chapman’s record in the State Parliament.
“Vickie Chapman served her party & this State for decades, held some of the most senior offices in govt, & dedicated much of her working life to public service,” the party wrote online.
“Politics is robust, but it shouldn’t descend into personal ridicule of people who have given decades of service.”
The Nightly has contacted Senator Antic about the meeting and his bid to become South Australian Liberal Party president but has not received a response, while Ms Chapman has also not commented.
Moderate Liberal members in South Australia have blamed Senator Antic and his powerful right-wing supporters for the party’s continuing poor electoral performance including at this year’s State contest which Labor won convincingly.
Federal Opposition figures remain anxious about Senator Antic’s motives and are concerned about rumours he could push for a merger between the Liberal and One Nation parties in South Australia.
After the March State election, the Liberals were reduced to just five Lower House seats in South Australia while One Nation managed to elect four MPs.
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