Labor Senator crosses the floor and gets slap on wrist

Labor Senator Fatima Payman has crossed the floor to vote against her party and has survived the ordeal.

That’s unheard of in the ranks of the ALP, with its rules screaming that floor crossers should be expelled from the party.

It is one very strong reason why no federal Labor parliamentarian has crossed the floor since 2005 – the consequences are too grave.

But Anthony Albanese knows that kicking a young Muslim woman out of the party over an issue that centres on race and discrimination would not be a good look for Labor.

The Prime Minister has, however, banned the maverick Senator from attending any more caucus meetings during this sitting of parliament.

In case you were wondering, that means Payman will miss only one caucus meeting. She has escaped the act of defiance virtually unscathed.

The first-term Senator crossed the floor late on Tuesday (25 June) to vote in favour of a Greens motion calling for Australia to recognise Palestinian statehood.

She said later that each step of that short journey across the chamber “felt like a mile”.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong tried unsuccessfully to amend the motions to include a clause stating such recognition would be “as part of a peace process in support of a two-state solution and a just and enduring peace”.

The Coalition and the Greens were having none of that (for very different reasons) and voted the amendment down, and so Senator Payman voted for the original motion against her own party but in support of her own convictions.

“I walked with my Muslim brothers and sisters who told me they have felt unheard for far too long,” she said after the vote.

“And I walked with the people of Palestine, for the 40,000 killed, for the hungry and scared boys and girls who now walk alone without their parents and for the brave men and women who have to walk alone without their children.

“I walked for humanity. I am proud of what I did today and am bitterly disappointed that my colleagues do not feel the same way.”

On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles was at pains to point out that Labor’s expulsion rule wasn’t actually “mandated” and that a Labor MP could feasibly remain in the party after crossing the floor.

There’s even precedent for that, he noted, before firmly suggesting that Senator Payman would be one such Labor parliamentarian to cross the floor and remain in the party.

“There’s not going to be any expulsion or anything of that kind,” Mr Marles said.

No punishment at all was what the Deputy PM was declaring.

But in the House of Representatives Question Time, the Coalition wanted to know if the PM was going to even suspend Senator Payman for being disloyal to the party.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton referred to former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke who suspended two MPs for crossing the floor way back when.

(Dutton has a bit of a penchant for referencing Hawkie of late; he praised the late Labor leader just a few days ago over comments about nuclear energy.)

When Mr Albanese got his feet to answer the question, he first expressed dismay that the Opposition and the Greens didn’t go for Labor’s amendment in the Senate the night before.

It was a reasonable attempt at arriving at a palatable position for everyone, he thought.

The PM repeated his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict and expressed once more his opposition to the Hamas attack on Israelis on October 7 and his grief at the subsequent humanitarian disaster in Gaza following Israeli retaliation.

Then he turned to the question, answering that he had met with Senator Payman before Question Time.

He then advised the House that the WA Senator would not be attending any more caucus meetings in this sitting (the aforementioned one meeting only).

For her part, Senator Payman says she was representing Labor’s “core values” in voting the way she did.

She made that point straight after she crossed the floor Tuesday evening.

“I was not elected as a token representative of diversity,” she said.

“I was elected to serve the people of Western Australia and uphold the values instilled in me by my late father.

“Today, I have made a decision that would make him proud and make everyone proud who is on the side of humanity.”