Division and extremism will be a hallmark of the South Australian Liberal Party's AGM today, with damning leaked documents showcasing a raft of contentious policies being pushed by factional agitators as the Antic Right asserts its control over Vincent Tarzia and his state team.
The shopping list of policy motions highlights anti-vax conspiracies, abandonment of Net Zero targets, rejection of renewable energy while pushing expensive nuclear alternatives and local waste storage, a drastic electoral system overhaul and the imposition of a four-day working week, which would again pitch the SA Liberals against the business community that was their former core constituency.
The policies detailed signify a major backlash against the previous Marshall Liberal government of which Vincent Tarzia was a member, with a move to outlaw lockdowns and border closures as a policy response to future viral pandemics. Other motions included relate to gender ideology and food labelling, as the Liberals continue to fight internal culture wars.
Embarrassingly, the Liberals are also canvassing policies complaining about road maintenance – despite this being privatised under the former Marshall Liberal government with maintenance equipment then-owned by the state department sold off for a quick buck. That sell-off has left a legacy of service delays and a major backlog blowout that the State Labor Government has been left to clean up.
As put by Tom Koutsantonis
Vincent Tarzia must show leadership and stare down the introduction of some of the wild and frankly embarrassing policies being put forward by the dominant Far Right wing of his party.
This new leak again highlights the lack of discipline and unity in the state Liberal ranks.
But more importantly, it shows the Liberals descending into a fringe movement under the weak leadership of Vincent Tarzia, a former moderate who is now so beholden to the Far Right led by rogue senator Alex Antic that he's simply stranded in the middle of the road with nowhere to go.
He continues to retain Stephen Patterson as a Shadow Minister for Net Zero and unilaterally declared that the Liberals' dalliance with nuclear was over, but his own party members continue to push for the exact opposite – what on earth is going on in Vincent Tarzia's Liberal Party?
Vincent Tarzia needs to put a stop to these fringe discussions about anti-vax extremism, gender ideology, nuclear waste fantasies and climate change denial, and articulate exactly what his Liberals stand for.
And he needs to do so in his keynote speech today, to avoid his party's AGM becoming yet another factional bloodbath.
