| Honorific-Prefix: | Senator |
| Alex Antic | |
| Office: | Senator for South Australia |
| Term Start: | 1 July 2019 |
| Birth Name: | Alexander Charles Antic |
| Birth Place: | Adelaide, South Australia, Australia |
| Party: | Liberal |
| Alma Mater: | University of Adelaide |
| Profession: | Lawyer, politician |
Alexander Charles Antic (born 1974) is an Australian politician who has been a senator for South Australia since 2019 representing the Liberal Party.
Antic was born in Adelaide in 1974, the son of Vicki Anderson and Ratomir Antic. In his maiden speech to parliament he stated his belief that he was the first Australian senator of Serbian descent. His father arrived in Australia from Yugoslavia in 1957 and eventually became director of thoracic medicine at Royal Adelaide Hospital.[1]
Antic holds arts and law degrees from the University of Adelaide.[1] Before entering politics he was a senior associate with Tindall Gask Bentley lawyers.[2] He served on the Adelaide City Council from 2014 to 2018, representing the south ward.[3] In that role, he argued that local governments must concentrate on the delivery of services, rather than "being used as a vehicle for identity politics".[4] He also used his position on the council to press for the preservation of Australia Day.[5]
Antic was elected to the Australian Senate at the 2019 federal election, taking office on 1 July 2019.[6] [7] In the Liberal preselection process, he had out-polled sitting senator Lucy Gichuhi, a fellow member of the party's conservative faction.[8] [9]
In September 2023, Antic joined a cross-party delegation of Australian MPs to Washington, D.C., to lobby the U.S. Department of Justice to abandon its attempts to extradite Australian publisher Julian Assange from the United Kingdom. The other members were Barnaby Joyce, Monique Ryan, David Shoebridge, Peter Whish-Wilson and Tony Zappia.[10]
In March 2024, Antic defeated Liberal moderate and Shadow Health Minister Anne Ruston, to gain the leading position on the South Australian Liberal senate ticket for the 2025 Australian election. When asked about taking the position from a woman, given the Liberals' low number of women in parliament, Antic responded that “the ‘gender card’ is nothing but a grievance narrative”.[11] Antic’s success in securing the top spot on the ticket led to criticism from other South Australian Liberals.[11] Former fellow councillors Anne Moran and (now Greens MLC) Rob Simms said that they had been aligned and got on well on the Adelaide City Council, but that Antic's politics had shifted since then. Moran said that undermining Ruston was a "pointless exercise" and "foolish politics".[12]
Antic is aligned with the right faction within the South Australian Liberals,[13] and, during the Morrison government, was identified with the National Right faction of the Liberal Party.[14] [15] He appears regularly on Sky News Australia[12] and has been a guest on far-right programs, including Steve Bannon’s podcast. He was set to be the MC for a speaking tour of Donald Trump Jr before it was cancelled, and was a guest at a forum with disgraced former Hillsong preacher Pat Mesiti.[16] [17] [18]