Protesters against South Australian council’s ‘Big Brother’ tech invoke Liberal Alex

The South Australian Liberal senator Alex Antic says he has “nothing to do” with a group that has distributed flyers with his image to promote a protest against a local council’s use of “Big Brother technology” to create an “open-air prison”.

The No Smart Cities Action Group (Noscag) is encouraging people to show up to a Salisbury council meeting next week to oppose the use of smart city technology, which is used for purposes such as notifying council workers when bins need to be emptied or toilets cleaned.

The flyer includes QR codes linking to videos featuring Antic, including one released in December in which Antic claims the state government could use smart city infrastructure to enforce “climate emergency” actions, such as targeting people if a “climate lockdown” was imposed.

Antic said: “I am aware of the Noscag group but that is the extent of my knowledge of what they are doing.”

He told the ABC he had asked the group to remove references to him from its flyers.

Last week protesters claiming climate action would restrict their freedom allegedly tried…