InDaily understands that former SA Liberal Opposition Leader Vincent Tarzia has been approached by members across the party to run against a possible Alex Antic-aligned, right-wing candidate for the blue-ribbon Federal electorate of Sturt.

Asked by InDaily to confirm the rumours, Tarzia – who now works as a consultant at Faculti Lawyers since the March 2026 state election when he lost the seat of Hartley – said he was “really enjoying my time in the legal world and have no intention of returning to politics at this stage”.

But multiple Liberal sources confirmed that Tarzia – who stepped down as leader of the Liberal party in December last year and was replaced by Ashton Hurn – had been approached to run for preselection for Sturt.

Sturt is a blue-ribbon seat in Adelaide, covering most of the eastern suburbs. Labor’s Clare Clutterham currently holds the seat, having won it in the 2025 Federal Election after defeating the Liberals’ James Stevens.

It is a seat traditionally held by the Liberals. Before Stevens took over the seat in 2019, Liberal stalwart Christopher Pyne was the Member for Sturt for 26 years. Ian Wilson was the Member for Sturt before Pyne from 1972 to 1993.

Clutterham’s win in Sturt in 2025 was historic – it was the first time the Labor party took control of the electorate since 1972.

It is a seat “to win back”, a senior Liberal source told InDaily.

Tarzia would potentially be running against the current President of the Sturt Federal Electoral Convention, Peter Varricchio.

Varricchio is a podiatrist and is aligned with newly elected SA Liberal President Alex Antic.  Varricchio only recently took control of the executive position in Sturt.

Varricchio made a speech at the Sturt AGM in which he said: “Centre-left thinking has destroyed how our party is viewed by the electorate”.

Instead, he said a “true Menzies conservative ticket based on the primacy of the individual, the family unit, free and competitive enterprise, rejection of identity politics and limited government where we have members that will fight for these values with a plan to rebuild this party” was the way forward for the SA Liberals.

“That is what voting for me represents; it represents a return to the Liberal Party of Menzies that stood by its principles and wasn’t afraid to scream it from the rooftops.”

Another senior SA Liberal source told InDaily that the Sturt preselection process was part of a larger takeover of top party roles by the Antic-led far-right.

The source – who wished to remain anonymous – said: “If we keep following this Peter Varricchio-Alex Antic train of thought, we are no different from One Nation”.

“We will become irrelevant if we go that way,” the source said.

“If we go with an Antic candidate, the [Liberal] relevancy is lost in Sturt.”

Tarzia could be an antidote in Sturt that might appease all sides of the increasingly fractured SA Liberal Party.

He is largely unaligned with the internal factions and is capable of working with the moderates and the conservatives in the party, sources told InDaily.

But he would need to convince the Liberal rank-and-file in Sturt to vote for him at an Electoral College where party members get to pick who is preselected for the electorate.

And it comes as SA Liberal Party state director Alexander Hyde is approaching party members to express their interest in becoming a federal election candidate.

A letter sent to party members and seen by InDaily shows the party is “ensuring we are campaign-ready for the next federal election”.

He wants expressions of interest from members in all non-Liberal-held federal seats, including Adelaide, Boothby, Hindmarsh, Kingston, Makin, Mayo, Spence and Sturt.