Albanese's post-budget headaches grow as Coalition seizes on Gaza comments
Anthony Albanese has dismissed Fatima Payman's comments on Gaza as the actions of a 'young' senator. But the controversy could prove seriously damaging to his government.
Usually keen to maintain an iron grip over the backbench, Labor's leadership in Canberra has tolerated a huge amount of public division over the Israel-Hamas war. Anthony Albanese and his senior colleagues figure it's better to let frustrations vent than boil over.
They did boil over on Wednesday, just minutes after Treasurer Jim Chalmers delivered his post-budget National Press Club address.
In a small nook one level above him in Parliament House, and with just one camera rolling, first-term Senator Fatima Payman was launching a direct challenge to the prime minister. Payman accused Australian leaders of “performatively gesturing [while] defending” Israel through what she labelled a genocide.
But the final line in her statement, made to a small group of journalists including Capital Brief, is causing the biggest headache for Albanese, just as he begins the process of selling the budget to voters.
