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Senator Fatima Payman goes rogue · The Front

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  Speaker 1: on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Thursday, June twenty seven.
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  Speaker 1: Jewish students and staff. An exclusive story in The Australian
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  Speaker 1: Today says they're offering assistance to any Jewish students who
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  Speaker 1: want to leave. She's a twenty nine year old Afghanistan
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  Speaker 1: born former pharmacy assistant and she's gone rogue. Senator Fatima
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  Speaker 1: Payman has broken ranks with the Labor Party that put
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  Speaker 1: her in power, defying Anthony Albanesi to vote with the
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  Speaker 1: Greens on Palestinian statehood. Today, our national editor Dennis Shanahan
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  Speaker 1: on why this is a serious challenge to Anthony Albanesi's authority.
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  Speaker 2: She's the first Labor senator to cross the Senate floor
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  Speaker 2: in more than three deses.
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  Speaker 1: Labor Senator Fatima payment made a daring decision to defy
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  Speaker 1: her party and across the floor. I believe that I
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  Speaker 1: have upheld the party ethos and called for what the
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  Speaker 1: party's platform as stipulate.
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  Speaker 3: The promise has been done over by a twenty nine
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  Speaker 3: year old woman from Western Australia on his team. It's
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  Speaker 3: as simple as that.
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  Speaker 1: On Tuesday, a huge moment in federal politics about the
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  Speaker 1: biggest issue in foreign policy right now, the conflict in Gaza.
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  Speaker 1: Labor Senator Fatima Payman crossed the floor and voted against
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  Speaker 1: her own party. It was a symbolic move. Payment voted
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  Speaker 1: with the Greens on one of their motions, formal recognition
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  Speaker 1: of the state of Palestine. The government's position is to
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  Speaker 1: support recognition of Palestine only as part of negotiations towards
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  Speaker 1: a two state solution that is Israel and Palestine coexisting.
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  Speaker 2: It's not about the policy issue in the Middle East.
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  Speaker 1: Dennis Shanahan is the Australian's National Editor.
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  Speaker 2: This hasn't solved anything about the Middle East. It's a
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  Speaker 2: bit like the Heckler's facing Jerry Seinfeld trying to stop
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  Speaker 2: Jewish comedians. It was a pointless vote, but as a
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  Speaker 2: result Senator Payman has sowned vision within the Labor Party,
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  Speaker 2: given a victory to Adam Bandt, and actually made it
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  Speaker 2: harder for Labor MPs to oppose the violence and the
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  Speaker 2: protests as well as stand up for Jewish Australians. This
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  Speaker 2: is a precedent on an issue which is not a
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  Speaker 2: conscience vote and which opens all sorts of possibilities for
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  Speaker 2: the Greens to exploit and for Labor MPs to come
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  Speaker 2: under increasing pressure in their seats if they don't start
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  Speaker 2: to take similar action.
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  Speaker 1: What Dennis is talking about is an ironclad rule of
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  Speaker 1: the Australian Labor Party decision made collectively by caucus, that
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  Speaker 1: is all the members of Parliament, and everyone towes the
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  Speaker 1: party line.
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  Speaker 2: What about Ed Husick in Western Sydney, with a large
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  Speaker 2: Moslem population and a Moslem himself, who I have to
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  Speaker 2: say has been absolutely straight down the line on this issue.
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  Speaker 2: He has not been for promoted any sort of violence
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  Speaker 2: or protest. He has appealed for peaceful negotiation while standing
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  Speaker 2: up for Islamic Australians. But what we see now is
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  Speaker 2: if there's another vote, what does ed Husick do? And
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  Speaker 2: people can then point to Senator Payment and say, look ed,
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  Speaker 2: look what she did. Why can't you.
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  Speaker 1: Labor has been here before. In the mid nineteen nineties,
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  Speaker 1: when Labor was in opposition, one of its senators, Mal Colston,
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  Speaker 1: had his eye on a new job in the set
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  Speaker 1: it as vice president. The promotion came with a pay
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  Speaker 1: bump of about ten thousand dollars and a few extra benefits.
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  Speaker 4: Senator Hill, Madam President, I remind the Senate at the
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  Speaker 4: time has come when it is necessary for the Senate
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  Speaker 4: to choose one of its members to be deputy President
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  Speaker 4: and chairman of committees.
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  Speaker 1: Colston's own party didn't nominate him for the Senate vice presidency,
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  Speaker 1: so the coalition swooped in they.
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  Speaker 2: Would support him in the vote if he voted for himself,
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  Speaker 2: which he did, and so he voted against the Labor
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  Speaker 2: candidate for himself and became Vice President of the Senate.
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  Speaker 1: It was high drama in the Senate, Labor betrayed by
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  Speaker 1: one of its own.
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  Speaker 2: The word of this government and its officeholders in this
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  Speaker 2: place is worth nothing.
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  Speaker 3: Is worth nothing is.
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  Speaker 2: Ye send it alive.
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  Speaker 1: But Colston's victory was short lived.
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  Speaker 2: He was expelled from the party. He was called the
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  Speaker 2: king Rat. He was pilloried in Parliament and elsewhere. He
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  Speaker 2: was completely excoriated by the Labor Party. And he was
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  Speaker 2: the last one to be expelled for crossing the floor.
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  Speaker 1: The point is Labour's long standing tradition is to expel
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  Speaker 1: MPs who break the rules. And guess who's been the
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  Speaker 1: most hardline practitioner of that tough standard. Anthony Alberonizi, a
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  Speaker 1: longtime party operative from the left faction, famous for enforcing discipline.
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  Speaker 1: Albanezi has a cameo in the classic nineteen ninety six
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  Speaker 1: documentary Rats in the Ranks, which is about the most
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  Speaker 1: brutal layer of politics local councils. Incumbent like Art Mayor
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  Speaker 1: Larry Hand is battling it out with three rivals from
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  Speaker 1: his own Labor Party for the mayoralty in nineteen ninety four.
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  Speaker 1: There's duplicity, dirty tricks and backstabbing all around.
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  Speaker 2: I've been bugger if I was gonna sit there and have
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  Speaker 2: idle hit shot out to stab men number it's pretty pathetic.
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  Speaker 1: Early Labour sends head office enforcer, the young Anthony Albanesi,
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  Speaker 1: just sort things out. He suggests the warring wannabe mayor's
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  Speaker 1: pull a name out of a hat.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yes, And Anthony Alberanesi was in that to his
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  Speaker 2: arm pits, and he was there and at the end
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  Speaker 2: he tried to keep away from the camera because there's
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  Speaker 2: a couple of shots. But what we've actually seen is
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  Speaker 2: that Anthony Alberanesi has a long history of expelling ALP
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  Speaker 2: members for as little as voting against his preferred mayoral
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  Speaker 2: candidate in a local light Art council election. And what's more,
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  Speaker 2: he boasted about it. So what we've actually seen is
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  Speaker 2: a repudiation of his own long history of taking action
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  Speaker 2: against ALP members who vote against the party, against members,
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  Speaker 2: and his own authority in calling for a balanced position
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  Speaker 2: on Israel and Palestine, his own authority in condemning the Greens,
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  Speaker 2: and the challenge he now faces not from a single senator.
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  Speaker 2: She is two years in the Senate. She doesn't represent
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  Speaker 2: any She got into the Senate with it with one
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  Speaker 2: nine hundred primary votes. She got there on the Labor ticket.
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  Speaker 2: She owes the Labor Party for getting into the Senate,
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  Speaker 2: for being where she is and being able to do
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  Speaker 2: what she can do. So is a question of loyalty
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  Speaker 2: to the Labor Party. All that is being undermined by
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  Speaker 2: what she's done, coming up.
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  Speaker 1: The high personal price many Labour MPs have paid to
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  Speaker 1: follow the party's rules. We'll be back after this break.
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  Speaker 1: When she was elected to the Senate in two thousand
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  Speaker 1: and one, Penny Wong became Australia's first openly gay cabinet minister.
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  Speaker 1: She and her partner Sophie Aloash are married with two daughters.
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  Speaker 1: It was the happiest ending to a long and complicated story.
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  Speaker 1: In those early days of Wong's career, Labour's position on
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  Speaker 1: same sex marriage was crystal clear. Marriage is between a
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  Speaker 1: man and a woman. Wong spoke about it during an
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  Speaker 1: appearance on the ABC's Q and A program in twenty ten.
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  Speaker 1: Now I accept that you and some other people in
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  Speaker 1: the community would like us to have a different position
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  Speaker 1: in terms of marriage.
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  Speaker 4: That isn't the position of the party.
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  Speaker 1: That year, for a second time, Wong voted against changing
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  Speaker 1: Labour's position on same sex marriage under Julia Gillard's leadership.
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  Speaker 1: The first had been two years earlier when Kevin Rudd
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  Speaker 1: was PM. Wong copped a lot of flak for those
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  Speaker 1: votes and for towing the party line despite being an
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  Speaker 1: openly gay woman. On that same episode of Q and
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  Speaker 1: a legendary Labor headkicker, Graham Richardson leapt to Wong's defense.
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  Speaker 3: I'm amazed somewhat by these questions. Really, you would not
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  Speaker 3: have had many of the things that have now happened
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  Speaker 3: that she's already referred to if people like Penny weren't
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  Speaker 3: in the Labour Party and weren't pushing for him. There
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  Speaker 3: are a lot of people in the Labor Party who
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  Speaker 3: don't agree with this stuff. At the moment, there's nowhere
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  Speaker 3: near a majority, but there will be over time, because
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  Speaker 3: people like Penny will work for it and it'll get
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  Speaker 3: up in the end. But give her a break, for
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  Speaker 3: God's sake. She's part of a corpus. There's a whole
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  Speaker 3: lot of it. She doesn't run the government, she's a
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  Speaker 3: part of it, a part of it. There's a thing
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  Speaker 3: called cabinet slide of barity, and if she wants to
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  Speaker 3: break it, she gets nowhere, you'll lose someone who fights
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  Speaker 3: for your cause. That my friends is dumb.
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  Speaker 1: See Penny Wong was bound by that same century old
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  Speaker 1: rule that dictates Labor members don't cross the floor on
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  Speaker 1: matters of policy, and so she sacrificed her own personal
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  Speaker 1: position to vote with the caucus. That's what Labor expects.
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  Speaker 1: There are some exceptions when the party agrees a particular
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  Speaker 1: matter can be a conscience vote. That is, each member
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  Speaker 1: can decide how to vote according to their own conscience.
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  Speaker 1: The Israel Palestine issue is not like that. Labour's policy
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  Speaker 1: is to support Palestinian statehood as part of a two
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  Speaker 1: state solution. The Greens want an unequivocal endorsement of Palestine
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  Speaker 1: as a state.
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  Speaker 2: Now this motion, this was not a conscience vote. There
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  Speaker 2: may be other motions and I wouldn't be surprised to
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  Speaker 2: see the Greens moving another motion in the House to
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  Speaker 2: try and flush out more people in the Labor Party.
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  Speaker 2: Adam Band has used Senator Payman's vote immediately saying calling
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  Speaker 2: on other Labor MPs to vote against the Labor Party
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  Speaker 2: policy on a two party solution in the Middle East.
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  Speaker 2: But it's really the social division at home which is
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  Speaker 2: the real problem. Senator payment has voted with the Greens
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  Speaker 2: and pro Palestinian sympathizers that the Prime Minister has condemned.
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  Speaker 2: He has excoriated them in the Parliament. He has attacked
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  Speaker 2: the Greens for giving sympathy to antisemitic thoughts and actions,
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  Speaker 2: damaging and attacking, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars of
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  Speaker 2: damage to MPs, including Labor MPs and Josh Burns in
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  Speaker 2: anti Semitic attacks. And so Senator Payment has backed that
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  Speaker 2: whole sentiment of social division here in Australia.
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  Speaker 1: What will be hurting Albanezi the most of the moment.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think the fact that he's got a renegade
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  Speaker 1: who he can't touch for those optics reasons that you
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  Speaker 1: described before, or that the Greens have had a win here.
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  Speaker 2: Oh well, I think it's essentially that the Greens have
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  Speaker 2: had a win. But what that represents is a lack
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  Speaker 2: of authority from the Prime Minister. Lack of authority is
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  Speaker 2: what is damaging Antony Albinese's leadership. He cannot continue to
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  Speaker 2: win if he loses continues to lose authority. He's lost
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  Speaker 2: authority over the voice, he lost authority over his denial
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  Speaker 2: on changes to tax cuts. He lost authority on this
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  Speaker 2: very issue of Palestine and social division and anti Semitism
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  Speaker 2: in Australia. And now we have a senator challenging his authority,
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  Speaker 2: joining the Greens the people he's condemned in Parliament that
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  Speaker 2: all the other MPs have voted against. And so it
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  Speaker 2: is a lack of authority.
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  Speaker 1: Dennis Adahan is The Australian's National editor. Thanks for joining
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  Speaker 1: us on the front and don't forget to join our
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  Speaker 1: subscribers at the Australian dot com dot au