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The Western Australian Young Liberals have condemned Malcolm Turnbull's bank levy in a set of controversial motions passed at a meeting of its policy forum on Monday night, and also proposed the public be permanently guaranteed permission to climb Uluru.
They also called for the immediate sacking of Yassmin Abdel-Magied from the board of the Council for Australian-Arab Relations, which is run by the ??Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Ms Abdel-Magied has been at the centre of several public attacks relating to her advocacy and interpretation of her religion.
But more controversial motions, including a proposal to lower to six weeks (from 20) the time in which an abortion can be carried out, and a call for the Commonwealth to allow for the purchase or funding of a giant satellite-launching "supergun", were either not debated or did not garner the backing of enough members to make the ideological wish list.
The series of motions expose further tensions between the party's grassroots membership and the parliamentary wing and come on the back of two controversial policy ideas put forward by the senior organisation of the WA branch's membership, which are causing serious angst inside the Turnbull government.
One, as revealed by Fairfax Media, relates to a push from the retired WA senator Alan Eggleston for the state's defences to be boosted in response to China's increased presence in the South China Sea.
Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg is attempting to stare down the other - a demand to have the federal government delist the great white shark from the protected species list, paving the way for the widespread culls of the fish.
Mr Frydenberg says Australia would have to violate international treaties to do so, and has pointed out that he can grant exemptions to help trap and even kill sharks without delisting the animal. But the WA state council is so far refusing to budge, setting up a potentially embarrassing showdown at June's federal council where the membership will be asked to debate the idea even though the federal party has signalled it should be amended or dropped.
Now the similarly-defiant WA Young Liberal motions passed overnight will now go to the state council, the same body refusing to obey the minister's wishes, for further endorsement.
One of the more far-reaching proposals, for the Commonwealth to spend $8 million or allow for private investment in a "giant supergun capable of launching satellites and raw materials into space," failed to win enough support inside the Young Liberals, as did a request to abolish compulsory voting and for WA to secede from the rest of the country. A motion demanding the public be guaranteed permission to climb Uluru was listed for debate. The idea is controversial as traditional landowners regard the rock as sacred and urge the public against climbing.
But other motions that did win the backing include: opposing Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's levy on the banks and reaffirming support for the existing national anthem against proposals for it to be changed.
The levy on the big four banks plus investment bank Macquarie was one of the surprise measures of the May budget. It will raise $6.2 billion over the next four years. The motion did not specifically state why the Young Liberals opposed the measure on the banks.
They also called for universities to have their funding restricted if they have policies deemed to restrict free speech.
The motion did not outline what would constitute free speech restrictions, who would be responsible for determining if any existed, and what the threshold for testing claims would be.
The WA Liberals are also demanding Ms Abdel-Magied be sacked from her position as a board member of the Council for Australian-Arab relations.
The motion challenges the authority of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, the most senior parliamentary figure in WA. She has so far refused to remove Ms Yassmin Abdel-Magied from the position.
Ms Abdel-Magied has been attacked by the government and right-wing media commentators for claiming that Islam is the most feminist religion and for likening Australia's ANZAC Day sacrifices to the government's treatment of detainees in offshore asylum seeker centres.
She swiftly apologised for her ANZAC Day Facebook post, but leading government figures continued to call for her sacking as a part-time ABC presenter. The ABC recently axed the program on which Ms Abdel-Magied appeared, but says it was related to budget and programming changes and not to the political controversies.
