This masthead revealed on Monday that when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese summoned Payman to The Lodge, he told her to consider her position as an MP and remember she was in the Senate because of Labor.
Druery has risen to prominence over the last decade for successfully stitching together complex preference deals at state and federal levels to elect minor-party and independent candidates to upper houses.
He confirmed to this masthead that he is informally advising both Payman and the coalition of Muslim groups, but declined to comment. Sources who were unauthorised to speak publicly said Payman had informal discussions with members of the alliance.
Payman has been contacted for comment. She was not seen in the Senate on Tuesday.
On Monday evening, Payman said she would abstain from voting in the Senate for the rest of the week “unless a matter of conscience arises, where I’ll uphold the true values and principles of the Labor Party”.
One Labor MP, who asked not to be named so they could speak freely, said: “The fact that she [Payman] is working with Druery shows this has been planned for weeks”.
A second Labor MP was shocked that Payman was working with Druery because he “is all about money and that is why he would be doing this, he will work with anyone”.
In their party room meeting on Tuesday morning, the Greens discussed whether to bring another motion calling for recognition of Palestine to the Senate on Wednesday or Thursday.
The coalition of Muslim groups talking to Druery plan to use the high-profile dispute over war in Gaza to harness support for a “teal-style” strategy to eject Labor MPs from seats with large Muslim populations.
Mahmud Hawila, a barrister and adviser to the collective, said former Labor and Liberal operatives had already been recruited to advise on campaigns and door-knocking had begun. Seats in the alliance’s sights include Wills in Melbourne, and NSW’s Blaxland, Watson and Werriwa.
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Druery’s advice to the group is understood to have focused on how to establish a political party that could harvest anger and disaffection in the Muslim community.
In 2016, the federal Coalition and the Greens teamed up to change the rules on how voters allocate their preferences in a move that reduced Druery’s ability to elect minor party candidates to the federal Senate. He then switched his focus to state parliaments, brokering a deal between Labor and Derryn Hinch in the Victorian state parliament’s upper house in 2019 and with other minor parties in 2022.
West Australians have a history of electing colourful members to the Senate. That includes independent Syd Negus who campaigned against inheritance taxes in the early 1970s, the country’s first Nuclear Disarmament Party representative Jo Vallentine, Dio Wang who was a member of Clive Palmer’s first federal party and One Nation’s Rod Culleton, who lost his position after being declared a bankrupt.
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