Vincent Tarzia must show leadership, step in and end the factional bloodshed dividing the South Australian Liberal Party, with a bombshell report today revealing the party has descended into open warfare.
A report in The Weekend Australian has revealed disaffection with the extreme Right wing that now dominates the state Liberal branch has spilled over, prompting two prominent MPs to storm out of a recent party meeting.
The report reveals a damaging split within the dominant Right faction, as the Alex Antic-led Hard Right seeks to unseat sitting conservative MPs and replace them with hand-picked recruits.
According to the report, relations within the Right "are so toxic that the grouping headed by Senator Antic and Mount Gambier-based federal MP Tony Pasin is known disparagingly as 'The Prayer Group'; in turn, the group has labelled their conservative rivals 'The Coalition of the Disaffected'".
It claimed the Antic faction invited a "Right wing influencer" to a recent rural and regional council meeting, whose criticism of federal leader Sussan Ley prompted a rebuke and mass walkout from former and current MPs, including Trish Worth and Senator Anne Ruston.
"All this macho Trump nonsense and obsession with culture wars, abortion, transgender, conspiracy theories around vax mandates … they have drifted off into their own mad orbit," one party source told The Australian.
It follows revelations last week that the party's state director compiled a list of policy motions on all these topics for the party's state council to consider adopting.
There are also reports the Antic faction is promoting candidates for preselection who have made wild social media claims including promoting conspiracy theories about chemtrails and claiming to have cured lactose intolerance through prayer.
South Australians deserve to know who is really running the South Australian Liberal Party: is it nominal leader Vincent Tarzia or rogue senator Alex Antic?
As put by Tom Koutsantonis
This latest revelation shows the Liberal Party has become a basket case.
If they can't govern themselves, how can they claim to be able to govern South Australia?
The Liberals are now a party of extremist views, personality cults and open factional warfare.
Vincent Tarzia needs to explain who is really pulling the strings, and reassure South Australians that the candidates running under the SA Liberal banner at the next State Election will be truly able to represent mainstream South Australia, rather than narrow sectional interests and factional agendas.
