Alex Antic, now Liberal state president, says Coalition must work with One Nation

Senator Alex Antic, the new president of the South Australian division of the Liberal Party, is predicting the Coalition and One Nation will need to co-operate at the next election to beat Labor, making him the most senior Liberal to call for active collaboration between the establishment centre-right party and a populist rival that seeks to become the dominant force on the right.

His comments came a day before One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce said that he had spoken to “very senior Liberals” about providing the Coalition with supply and confidence if Opposition Leader Angus Taylor won enough seats to form a minority government at the next election, which polls suggest is unlikely.

Antic triumphed by 119 votes to 73 on Saturday in a battle for the presidency of the state division that pitted him against establishment figures from the moderate and conservative factions who were desperate to defeat the hardliner.

Antic shakes hands with Pauline Hanson in the Senate in March.Alex EllinghausenConservative powerbrokers in Canberra have fallen out with Antic and fear that he is angling to create closer ties with One Nation, whose federal leader, Pauline Hanson, and state leader, Cory Bernardi, have good relations with Antic. Antic was pictured shaking hands and smiling with Hanson in the Senate last week, and has never ruled out defecting to One Nation when asked.

Antic has avoided speaking with mainstream media, which he rejects, since winning on Saturday. On Monday, he spoke to Reality Check Radio, which produces documentaries on the dangers of fluoride in drinking water and “worldwide digital currency” designed to stop people with right-wing opinions from buying goods and services.

Antic cited the latest Newspoll showing the Coalition primary at 19 per cent as proof One Nation was “here to stay” and that it was pointless for the Coalition to take “pot shots” at Hanson.

“The reality is, I think in most likelihood there is going to have to be some sort of understanding, some sort of co-operation,” he said. “The political reality of this is that there is going to have to be some sort of understanding in some sort of format between the Liberal Party and One Nation, I believe, in order to form government.”

“That’s my personal view, that’s not the view of the Liberal Party.”

Antic emphasised that Taylor was on the right path in restoring life to the Liberal Party.

Taylor has repeatedly said there will be no commitment to work with One Nation in any sort of coalition or seat-sharing arrangement. But it is likely the parties will preference each other ahead of Labor, as the right-wing parties have already done in previous elections, and as Labor swaps preferences with the Greens.

The senator – who has been campaigning against flu vaccinations, while endorsing Malcolm Roberts, and criticising powers given to ASIO – said the Coalition should learn from the way Labor used the Greens to win support for its legislative agenda, as it grapples with the new threat from One Nation.

However, Antic did not mention that Labor benefits from the Greens because the left-wing party’s primary vote was considerably lower than Labor’s, meaning it benefited from preferences to win many seats. In contrast, One Nation is ahead of the Coalition and therefore is on track to win a large haul of seats and effectively replace the Coalition as the main conservative party.

Antic made his remarks in an interview with South Australian lawyer Michael Arbon, who until recently worked for United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet. Antic’s opponents in South Australia believe Antic will push for Arbon to replace Senator Leah Blyth, as the outspoken right-wing factional leader seeks to wipe out his internal enemies.

Blyth is leading a push for the federal executive to take over the South Australian division, which Antic now controls after years of recruiting evangelical and Pentecostal members turned off by progressive stances on euthanasia and abortion under the state government of Liberal Steven Marshall.

This masthead revealed last month that Antic’s forces were pushing internally to purge a swath of members including former foreign minister Alexander Downer, a conservative party legend and the nation’s longest-serving foreign minister.

Top conservative powerbrokers in Canberra said last month that Antic’s actions had not yet reached the legal threshold to warrant intervention, a rare move in the Liberals. But MPs in Canberra, from Taylor’s right faction, are watching for signs that Antic is unrestrained and could only be curtailed by force of an intervention. However, as state president, Antic now sits on the federal executive, which would be required to make any call on intervention.

Asked about Antic’s election on Tuesday, Taylor told reporters: “Sure, it’s a democratic process and he won the vote.”

He deflected a question on federal intervention, saying instead that he wanted to see “a South Australian division that’s election-ready”.

In an interview on News24, Joyce said One Nation would probably offer the Coalition support to form a government in the scenario that Taylor won enough seats to form a majority with the help of One Nation.

“We’ve said our job is to get rid of the socialists. So either we offer supply and confidence to the Coalition, and obviously on the premise of solving the policy outcomes that we would want for that to happen, and we would want there to be clear acknowledgement that they are our policy outcomes,” he said.

“I will say I’ve had discussions as recently as this morning with very, very senior Liberals about precisely this.”

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