REPORTER: West Australian Senator Fatima Payman has quit the Labor Party.
FATIMA PAYMAN, INDEPENDENT SENATOR: I’m ready to serve them as an independent voice, to be their voice in Canberra.
BILL SHORTEN, LABOR MP: The Senate’s littered with people who’ve taken advice from Glenn Druery. Sometimes they get up, ultimately, they flame out.
KATY GALLAGHER, LABOR SENATOR: The fact that she removed herself, really, from contact with her colleagues had worried us and so we had been reaching out.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: It’s very clear that Fatima Payman is in the Senate because people in WA wanted to elect a Labor Government.
LAURA TINGLE, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: The dramatic resignation of Senator Fatima Payman from the Labor Party dominated the last sitting of parliament with politicians on all sides quick to add their two cents worth to an increasingly fractious debate over Palestine.
Payman’s alienation, and subsequent resignation, from the Labor Party focused attention on the growth of groups seeking to mobilise Muslim voters to make their votes count on the issue, and even to stand candidates against sitting MPs.
But it also provoked a renewed debate on Labor’s caucus rules, and the views of party members about Palestine.
DOUG CAMERON, FORMER LABOR SENATOR: Overwhelmingly, I would argue, that the rank and file of the Labor Party would like to see the National Conference policy implemented and that is recognition of Palestine, not hiding behind some argument that you have to have a peace settlement before you can recognise Palestine.
LAURA TINGLE: Former union leader, Senator for New South Wales and now rank and file Labor member, Doug Cameron, has had plenty of chances over the years, and from different perspectives, to view the Labor caucus and its role in both taking the message of the rank and file to the government and being a forum for robust debate.
DOUG CAMERON: The other big change that I’ve seen is that caucus was much more robust many years ago. There was more voices of difference and I don’t see different voices being a weakness. I see that as a strength.
I mean, why are we tearing the party apart on the issue of recognition of Palestine, when the majority of countries in the UN recognize the right of Palestine to be a state?
LAURA TINGLE: It’s a particular issue within Young Labor.
ADAM CONNOR, PRESIDENT, YOUNG LABOR LEFT NSW: I think young people, and especially young, engaged members of the Labor Party, are really horrified by what they’re seeing in Gaza over these last nine months.
The main things that Young Labor has been calling for is immediate recognition of Palestinian statehood in line with the national platform of the party and also the end of military cooperation with the Israeli government. We want the killings to stop.
LAURA TINGLE: The Payman controversy, beyond a passionate debate on Palestine, has focused attention on the so-called pledge that caucus members must make.
PROF. FRANK BONGIORNO, HISTORIAN: The solidarity pledge goes back to the very earliest years of the Labor Party. It was adopted, really, at the first meeting of the New South Wales Labor Party. It’s quite a struggle in the early years to get MPs to actually accept it.
LAURA TINGLE: Historian Frank Bongiorno says the pledge reflected a different sense of collective to the one that applies today.
FRANK BONGIORNO: When Labor came into parliament, it came in with a really distinctive take on democracy. And this was the idea, you weren’t just responsible to your constituents in your electorate, you’re responsible to the broader Labor movement, and the machinery of caucus and pledge was really designed to enforce that.
LAURA TINGLE: The question now is whether there is room for more differentiation on obligations to solidarity. For example, a greater ability to have conscience votes and whether matters like a motion in the Senate, like the Greens motion on Palestine which Senator Payman supported, as opposed to legislation, should be something where individual members of caucus have more rights to vote individually.
FRANK BONGIORNO: Well, in the House of Commons, there’s a differentiation that’s laid down by the whip about, you know, whether it is a matter where everyone is expected to vote the same way, or whether there is room for more flexibility.
DOUG CAMERON: I support the issue of caucus solidarity. We need to get some flexibility in that process.
For instance, the issues that came up recently about recognition of Palestine in the Senate was really meaningless in the overall concept of things. It didn’t make any difference and I don’t see why someone can’t, in those circumstances, have what they think in the right thing to do.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: We have in the Labor Party a collective responsibility. The Labor Party was formed so that working people could advance their interests against more powerful interests in our society. We take action together going forward and I must say, 103 members of our caucus are on exactly the same page on these issues, exactly the same page.
FRANK BONGIORNO: I think there is an impression that a caucus is less vigorous in its debating kind of culture than it was during the Hawke years. In caucus it was, you know, even more wild during the Whitlam era where cabinet members could actually go back to caucus and argue against cabinet positions.
LAURA TINGLE: Senator Payman says she is going on a tour of Western Australia and has started an extensive round of media appearances since leaving the caucus and the party. Today, reports emerged that the former president of Western Australian Young Labor would controversially be speaking at an event promoted by Young Labor next week.
ADAM CONNOR: So the event that’s been referred to is organised by completely separate organisation. Young Labor Left hasn’t been involved in the hosting or organising of that but good luck to the organisers.
LAURA TINGLE: Nevertheless, there is considerable rank and file support for Senator Payman.
ADAM CONNOR: There’s been a lot of discussion around this in Young Labor. We would have much preferred that Senator Fatima Payman remained a member of the Labor Party and an advocate for Palestine within the Labor Party but there is a lot of sympathy for her position.
FRANK BONGIORNO: I think one of the really interesting things about the Senator Payman business is that it’s shown that for many members of the public, and perhaps particularly for younger people, that those sort of rules around corporate solidarity are almost incomprehensible. They do seem to belong to another era.
ADAM CONNOR: I think having more diverse views in the Labor Party, especially on issues of peace and justice like this, to me and to many young people can only be a good thing.
LAURA TINGLE: While Labor politicians and members contemplate what has happened, the Prime Minister today announced a long-anticipated appointment.
ANTHONY ALBANESE: We have seen since October 7 last year a significant rise in antisemitism in Australia and that is why the Government has made the decision to appoint a Special Envoy on Antisemitism.
Shortly we’ll also be announcing an Envoy on Islamophobia.
LAURA TINGLE: The Prime Minister said the announcement was being made today because of the timing of an international conference next week in Argentina on combating antisemitism.
Just how politics deals with a revival of politicians being identified by faith remains in flux.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus was asked at the National Press Club today whether MPs’ religious views should be regarded as relevant to their stance on human rights, or even encouraged pigeonholing.
MARK DREYFUS, ATTORNEY-GENERAL: There’s nothing wrong with identifying that people are members of particular groups in our community.
What’s wrong is when we assume, and this is prejudice and discrimination, that that is determinative of their views or determinative of the way they’ll vote or determinative of the way that they will behave in society.