Selling the ABC is not one of those ideas. The call to sell the public broadcaster, put by the Young Liberals and carried by adults who should know better, was pure self-indulgence. The sale will not happen. The motion was cheap theatre. Even so, it says a lot about the state of Australian politics today. Senator Mitch Fifield and Minister for Finance, Senator the Hon Mathias Cormann at the Sydney conference on Saturday. Credit:AAP Conservatives are flexing their muscles within the Liberal Party in every way they can. The ABC motion was a show of rage from those who believe the broadcaster is so biased against them that they can never get a fair hearing on same-sex marriage, voluntary euthanasia, racial discrimination laws and other disputes. The motion was a classic case of “virtue signalling” to their own base – the very thing conservatives like to decry when they see it from the Greens or Labor.

Other motions at the federal council displayed the same pattern. The Young Liberals – yes, them again – called for a debt ceiling, a great way to highlight the rising debt under their own Liberal ministers. Others wanted a motion about minorities in South Africa to be modified to make it clear it was about white farmers. A motion to move the Australian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was passed narrowly, 43 to 31, after Foreign Minister Julie Bishop spoke against it. Some of the conservative officials who lead the party voted in favour. Do they not trust their own cabinet ministers on such a sensitive foreign policy? Loading To its great credit, the Liberal Party allowed the media into the federal council to hear the good and bad. Labor does the same, although the Greens restricted access for years. Serious parties allow this transparency. The conservatives put on a show of strength by moving against one of the party’s vice presidents, Trish Worth, and replacing her with one of their own, Teena McKenzie. The vote was 54 to 50. The message? Those who counter the conservatives risk their positions.