Two women were centre stage in the last sitting week of federal parliament before the long winter break – one with the power to dismiss the government and the other with the power to badly destabilise it.
Sam Mostyn, the new governor-general, has this by dint of her office. Fatima Payman has it by dint of her conviction.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is more than confident Mostyn, his personal pick for the job, will not follow the precedent set by Sir John Kerr in 1975 with the dismissal of the Whitlam government.
He is less confident about the fallout from Senator Payman’s decision on Thursday to resign from the Labor Party.
The ghost of Kerr hovered over the swearing in of Australia’s 28th representative of the British monarch, our head of state, thanks to a recollection from Mostyn herself.
She said she had her first encounter with the position of governor-general as a 10-year-old watching live coverage of the 1975 dismissal from the casualty ward of what was then the Woden Valley Hospital.
Mostyn was having a broken ankle set in plaster and the broadcast stirred a curiosity in her about “our constitutional arrangements, our parliament and our democracy”.
Of course, she was not alone. The entire nation was galvanised by the event. Looking back, Mostyn said it would have been “preposterous” for that 10-year-old to think she would one day be governor-general.
The Kerr reference had another resonance. King Charles III, at whose “pleasure” Mostyn represents with all the powers of the Constitution and the precedent set by Kerr’s abuse of them, himself played a part in the ambush of then prime minister Gough Whitlam.
This was revealed by historian Jenny Hocking in her compilation of the “palace letters”, kept secret until they were prised open by the High Court of Australia in May 2020.
The “palace letters” revealed Kerr had told then Prince Charles of his intentions almost three months before he sacked Whitlam. The heir to the throne did nothing to caution him or, as protocol and decency demanded, to warn the prime minister this was a live option.
Charles, like his mother the Queen’s private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, was part of the conspiracy of silence that ambushed Whitlam and created one of the sorriest moments in Australian political life.
Kerr was certainly given the royal seal of approval after the event, with the Queen conferring on him one of her highest honours. Off her own bat, she also knighted Kerr’s private secretary, David Smith. Charles is recorded as congratulating Kerr for his courageous action.
All of this could be ancient history except the powers Kerr used to deceive and then sack the democratically elected Australian prime minister still exist. They have not been circumscribed or deleted and how they are used depends on the character of whoever resides at Government House. It is an intolerably undemocratic situation.
These powers – and indeed the persistence of a foreign head of state – are a colonial anachronism Anthony Albanese wants to end. The governor-general’s oath of allegiance as we saw this week is not to the Australian people but to the unelected King.
According to Albanese’s assistant minister for the republic, Matt Thistlethwaite, a republic is “a long-term vision for a mature and independent Australia with its own head of state”.
However, Thistlethwaite says the No. 1 priority for the government at the moment is addressing the cost-of-living pressures buffeting Australians.
He says that after the failure of the Voice, the appetite for another referendum on a republic has waned, especially in light of the fact Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is an avowed monarchist.
If anything was learnt from the Voice’s searing rejection, it’s that bipartisan support is essential for any constitutional change.
Albanese didn’t have the same luxury of biding his time in dealing with Fatima Payman. Her defiance of Labor Party rules to support a simple Greens motion for the Senate to recognise a state of Palestine ignited a firestorm in seats with significant Muslim numbers.
Payman spent this week mulling over her future, incensed she had been given an ultimatum by Albanese last Sunday and that somebody tipped off a news crew to video her leaving the “stern but fair” dressing-down at the Lodge.
She told a news conference timed to distract from Thursday’s Question Time that she saw this as intimidation and was quitting.
Payman believes the Albanese government has turned its back on the recognition of Palestine committed to at two ALP national conferences. She says it is a matter of conscience and humanity that she continues to advocate for this cause.
Albanese is baffled as to why Payman rejected the Penny Wong amendment last week, tying recognition of Palestine to the peace process on the way to a two-state solution. The motion passed in the lower house this week but was again voted against by the Greens and the Coalition.
The prime minister on Tuesday told parliament Payman quitting could be part of a plan that would see her become the parliamentary face of one of the incipient Muslim parties. On Thursday, she did not rule that out, telling reporters to “stay tuned”.
Colleagues who have reached out to her in recent times say her action is particularly motivated by developments in her personal life, which have seen her reconcile more devoutly to her Muslim faith. One tells me he believes her family have played a big part in this.
That may be so, although it is not only devout Muslims who are expressing outrage over the devastation and death toll in Gaza. Bilal Rauf, from the Australian National Imams Council, says there is “real disappointment” in the Muslim community at the response of the major parties.
One Western Sydney MP acknowledges there is a mood of anger and resentment in the community that is “the worst I have seen”. He says the impact of the Payman episode “is diabolical for our seats”.
Various groups are now actively mobilising the Muslim vote. Mahmud Hawila, of The Muslim Vote, told 10 News First candidates running for the group or endorsed by it “will certainly win seats” because Labor had taken their vote for granted.
According to Labor people on the ground in Western Sydney, the group has so far failed to attract high-profile candidates prepared to run. That may change and the risk for Labor is they could have the same effect as the teals had on the Liberals at the last election. If they take enough seats from Labor, they could push the government lower than the Liberals in terms of seat numbers.
As one MP says, “Independents are under pressure to support the major party with the greatest number of seats.” It would be an irony if this revolt in Labor’s heartland over the government’s position on Israel and Gaza saw the Dutton Liberals get up in minority.
By any measure, the Liberals are far more outspokenly pro-Israel than they are pro-Palestinian. This week, though, their opportunism was on display. On Monday they demanded Albanese sack Payman for what they described as her “anti-Semitism”, saying if he did any less he would be “weak”. On Tuesday, taking the other tack, deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley demanded Albanese spell out what steps he had taken to “investigate these claims of intimidation” in Senator Payman’s workplace.
The prime minister denied he had intimidated the senator, saying he had “a very civil and constructive discussion” with her after inviting her to The Lodge. He, like his senior ministers, was acutely aware that if Payman quit the party for the cross bench – she’s in the Senate until 2028 – it had to be seen as her choice.
Gamel Kheir, of the Lebanese Muslim Association, says second- and third-generation Muslim Australians are educated and understand they need to be as well organised as “the Zionist lobby” he says is “extremely good at lobbying governments of both persuasions”.
Channel Ten’s Hugh Riminton analysed Australian Electoral Commission figures in four Sydney seats and four Melbourne seats where the Muslim vote was bigger than the margin Labor members gained at the last election.
This, of course, presumes all Muslims will vote the one way. Labor MP Peter Khalil, from the Melbourne seat of Wills, believes voters will consider a number of issues when they come to cast their ballots. Khalil is already facing a strong challenge from Samantha Ratnam, the Greens’ former Victorian leader, and his office is the target of regular protests demanding stronger action against Israel.
The Greens are promising intensive doorknocking in these vulnerable seats during the winter break, in the hope it will force their Labor members to follow Payman’s example and cross the floor after parliament resumes.
On Tuesday, Peter Dutton warned his troops to get ready for an election as early as September. Whenever it comes, it will be a test for the major parties on how they deal with diversity and how younger voters, particularly women, view them.
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