Albanese bows to the inevitable and suspends Payman after slow burning rebellion
The Labor government has effectively lost its first member after senator Fatima Payman was suspended indefinitely over her ongoing revolt on Gaza.
Fatima Payman’s slow-burning rebellion against her own government goes back to November last year, and was always likely to end like this: her future in Labor effectively over.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declared Payman, Australia’s youngest sitting senator and first to wear a hijab, is not welcome in caucus until she agrees to abide by its rules.
Albanese has been weighing a number of factors since Tuesday, when Payman’s growing revolt over the Gaza crisis crescendoed. The first-term senator defied her leaders and 130 years of party convention to cross the floor and vote for a Greens motion to immediately recognise Palestine, a move that typically results in expulsion under Labor rules.
Albanese, aware of growing anger at his approach to Gaza and the optics of booting a young Muslim senator, initially responded with a light touch. Payman would be barred from Tuesday’s caucus meeting, though no more. But one source told Capital Brief that Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles were told in no uncertain terms of anger at the decision among backbenchers.
