‘I walked for humanity’: Labor senator Fatima Payman crosses floor to recognise Palestine

Labor senator Fatima Payman has become the party’s first member to cross the floor in decades after she voted with the Greens to recognise Palestinian statehood in a vote on Tuesday.

The federal government moved quickly to quell expectations the WA senator would be expelled from Labor, despite the fact MPs have previously been thrown out for not toeing the party line. Payman, a first-term senator, said she was proud she had upheld her convictions, although she was bitterly disappointed her Labor colleagues had not joined her.

Labor senator Fatima Payman crossed the floor to vote with the Greens to recognise Palestinian statehood.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“My decision to cross the floor was the most difficult decision I have had to make, and although each step I took across the Senate floor felt like a mile, I know I did not walk these steps by myself, and I know I did not walk them alone,” Payman said during a snap press conference held minutes after the vote.

“I walked with the people of Palestine, for the 40,000 killed, for the hungry and scared boys and girls who now walk alone without their parents, and for the brave men and women who have to walk alone without their children. I walked for humanity. I am proud of what I did today, and I’m bitterly disappointed that my colleagues do not feel the same way.”

Asked if she expected to be expelled from Labor, Payman said: “That is a prerogative for my party.

“I believe that I have upheld the party ethos and called for what the party’s platform has stipulated.”

The moment Payman crossed the floor.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Labor rules bind caucus members to the party’s collective decisions, and MPs who vote against those risk being thrown out.

While not ruling out expulsion, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s office said: “There is no mandated sanction in these circumstances, and previous caucus members have crossed the floor without facing expulsion.

“The senator says she maintains strong Labor values and intends to continue representing the Western Australians who elected her as a Labor senator.”

Coalition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said Payman’s decision to vote with the Greens “directly challenges the leadership of the prime minister”.

“It’s a matter for Labor whether or not they expel Senator Payman from the party, but this proves that there’s no appeasing the extreme views in Labor,” he said.

Greens leader Adam Bandt said Payman “had the courage to do the right thing”. “Senator Payman’s courageous actions now show up every Labor MP who has refused to cross the floor,” he said.

Payman said she had only made up her mind over the vote while on the Senate floor and had not spoken to Albanese about her plans. “The Australian Labor Party’s policy platform recognises both Israel and Palestine,” she said. “We cannot believe in two state solutions and only recognise one.

“I was not elected as a token representative of diversity. I was elected to serve the people of Western Australia and uphold the values instilled in me by my late father. Today I have made a decision that would make him proud.”

Payman said she had received mixed treatment from her caucus colleagues. “There’s been many comrades who feel the same way, but don’t agree with the method I’ve gone about conveying my message,” she said.

“Everyone who would ask me until today what I was going to do with this motion, I said, ‘I will follow my conscience and I will, you know, I’m in the hands of God and I will do what’s best for the people that I represent, and that I pledged to represent when I got elected two years ago.’”

Payman and colleagues listen as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addresses a Labor caucus meeting on Tuesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The Greens put an urgency motion recognising a State of Palestine to the Senate on Tuesday, after an attempt to bring the motion on the House of Representatives last month was blocked by parliament.

Payman accompanied independent senator David Pocock to sit with the Greens and vote for the motion late on Tuesday afternoon, while her Labor colleagues voted against it.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong had earlier on Tuesday proposed to change the motion to say: “The need for the Senate to recognise the State of Palestine as a part of a peace process in support of a two-state solution and a just and enduring peace.”

But the Greens rejected the amendment and Bandt accused the government of a “cowardly delay tactic” in fulfilling its intention to recognise a Palestinian state.

Meanwhile, the Coalition doomed the prospect of any motion succeeding by putting forward its own lengthy criteria involving security guarantees, the eradication of Hamas, and the reform of the Palestinian Authority governing the West Bank.

Payman, who has been outspoken over the conflict, stepped down from two parliamentary foreign affairs committees after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rebuked her for using the controversial phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” earlier this year.

Jewish groups regard the “from the river to the sea” slogan as a coded call for the elimination of Israel, while others have insisted it is simply a call for freedom and equal rights for Palestinians.

Payman has also accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.

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