Something extraordinary happened last week. South Australian Senator, Alex Antic, won the South Australian Liberal Party presidency.

Not a moderate. A conservative.

For months, an intense round of factional warfare threw everything at Antic, and he still emerged victorious from a delegate system that has kept plenty of conservatives out of power.

In our opinion, this system is often gamed by political careerists, where moderates are left to set policy and select politicians. No wonder so many members deserted.

Not this time though. A conservative is back in power. So, how did Antic do it?

Antic spent the best part of five years rallying members and delegates, largely from faith groups. These are loyal Christian members with traditional Liberal values. Unlike many of his peers, Antic understood the delegate system and used it to his advantage before his factional rivals realised what was happening. And when they did, they were undermanned because of One Nation’s recent capture of Liberal seats.

Antic took them by surprise. It is a tactic that worked once and may never work again.

Which is why, in our opinion, Antic should use his year-long presidency to reform the state constitution, cement his victory, and guarantee future conservative victories in South Australia by giving voting voice directly to the members, not the delegates.

This would turn a one-off presidency role into permanent change.

Antic himself declared his vision to reform the party during the recruitment drive, saying he wanted to ‘give the party back to the membership’.

That is exactly what he should do. And soon.

The Liberal Reform Association will be pleased to show him exactly how that can be achieved by reimagining Menzies’ successful model, but with modern technology including the application of online voting.

This is what Antic said:

‘The members now are back to increasingly where it used to be where there are groups of members that are running their own show around the state, and we hope we will continue to sort of pump in decent candidates. We had a heap at the last federal election. We just couldn’t get them elected. We want members in, so that we can get the right people. True Liberals. Because I need help in Canberra.’

In addition to being known as outspoken and popular, Senator Antic could make a name for himself as the first true reformer in half a century.

While he has the delegate numbers, and thus the delegate vote, he is in a unique position to give the voting power back to the Liberal membership.

Remember, a broad membership base system, with all appointments and positions decided by members, attracts even more like-minded members. And so it grows. Even better, we know they would certainly support conservatives over moderates because the members themselves are already dominated by traditional conservatives.

Once constitutional change is achieved, the party will be locked in as the sort of conservative party envisioned by Menzies.

Which is why the moderates fight against changing the system…

Currently, One Nation and Pauline Hanson are doing some of the reforming leg-work by displacing moderate seat-warmers. Their absence has provided fresh opportunities for rising conservatives. It is quite the irony that One Nation is helping the Liberals clean-house of the ideological rot that has been damaging the party. Much as we respect Pauline Hanson, it is our view that unless One Nation itself reforms and becomes a member-driven party, it will struggle to outlast her personal tenure as a Senator and so a reformed Liberal Party should be the goal if they want to beat her.

If Antic were to achieve this, he could reverse the otherwise inevitable era of Liberal decline in his state. After all, everyone knows that the wetter the Liberals get, the worse their election results are. South Australia is running a moderate leader against a rising One Nation vote. If it were not for Antic, the state would already be written off as a loss.

Paranoia about One Nation even led to speculation that Antic himself might defect. The fierceness with which he fought the presidency battle has all-but settled those loyalty questions.

Perhaps this risk of defection was weighing on the minds of the Liberals who cast their vote at the Hotel Grand Chancellor, awarding him a resounding 119 votes to 73 over Nicola Centofanti. That is 62 per cent of the 192 delegates who were allowed to vote.

There are, however, roughly 4,000 Liberal members in South Australia. It is our view that if they had been allowed to vote their vote would have awarded Antic an even larger majority.

Either way, Antic has sent a significant message to the moderates, with members of his conservative faction taking all of the vice president positions.

There were rumours that members were threatening a mass exodus if Antic were to lose the vote and considering how many new people Antic brought to the party, this was probably a genuine concern.

The presidency role was previously held by Senator Leah Blyth, the former president of the SA Liberal Women’s Council.

With Alex Antic stepping into the role, one wonders if there are any moderates and careerists within the party curious if South Australian state leader, Ashton Hurn, would consider calling in help from the federal team, now led by Angus Taylor and federal party president Tony Abbott. While there is no evidence of any such request in the works, even if there was, it is unlikely they would do so.

If Tony Abbott were to intervene, it should only be to settle who the president and vice president should be by allowing the 4,000-strong membership base to vote on it. Just the threat of that would be the last time a faction called for intervention.

Abbott has spoken about reforming not only the federal party, but has supported our drive to reform the Queensland LNP. Like every Liberal division, there are just a handful of people in each state who control the party. This tight control has underpinned the Liberal Party’s demise. Antic, we hope, is bucking this trend.

Following Antic’s victory, moderate rivals have held their tongues and refrained from all-out war in the press. They appear to be prepared to grin and bear the situation, no doubt because of what I said earlier … that Antic’s victory is likely to be an anomaly unless true reform is undertaken.

Moderates believe they are the solution to One Nation, but the truth is Antic is far more likely to drag votes back from One Nation.

Antic has an opportunity to reform, if he is quick, and if he is brave.

The press have called him a right faction kingpin and a rebel. Is he a reformer?

The Liberal Reform Association has been trying to reform the constitution of the Queensland state LNP, but that has proven far more difficult with powerful politicians and executive members of the party fiercely opposing change.

South Australia, under the presidency of Alex Antic, is a rare opportunity to prove that the way to save the Liberals is to reform the constitution and hand power back to the membership.

Antic knows the system. I urge him to change it.

The post Alex Antic: reformer, victor, and future leader appeared first on The Spectator Australia.