To vote or not: Fatima Payman warns Labor she needs more staff to do her job

Fatima Payman is a woman in a bind. The newly independent senator is unshackled from having to follow the policy dictates of the Labor Party. But she says her desire to exercise her own judgment is being stymied by a lack of parliamentary staff, forcing her to abstain from voting on key bills.

Payman, who sensationally quit Labor last month over disputes triggered by the war in Gaza, estimates her workload is now 10 times as demanding as when she was a Labor backbencher.

“I take my job seriously. I’m not here to just have a cruisy ride for the next four years,” Fatima Payman says.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Instead of falling in line with the Labor caucus, the 29-year-old now has to form her own views on complex pieces of legislation ranging from reining in the construction union to taxpayer subsidies for critical minerals projects. Lobbyists wait outside her office in the hope of bending her ear.

“It’s like moving from this massive corporate world to one where you’re a small business owner doing everything on your own,” she says in an interview in her Parliament House office during her first sitting week as an independent. “It is very overwhelming.”

Making the task more difficult, she says, is a lack of parliamentary staff as she seeks to represent the vast state of Western Australia.

Payman is currently making do with the five electorate staff – who typically deal with constituency matters, media and stakeholders rather than legislation – previously allocated to her as a backbench senator, including her new chief of staff Glenn Druery.

She says she wrote to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after quitting Labor on July 4, and again this week, seeking an extra two advisers to work through legislation, in line with her fellow independent senators. She says she has yet to receive a response from Albanese, who has ultimate discretion over staffing matters.

“I take my job seriously. I’m not here to just have a cruisy ride for the next four years,” she says.

“It’s important I do justice to my constituents and that requires me to have the resources to do my job.”

While stressing that she is not threatening the prime minister, Payman says she will have to abstain from voting on major legislation if she feels she is not sufficiently briefed on the issues. It’s not an idle warning.

In her first week as an independent senator, Payman abstained from voting on several significant bills, including the government’s failed bid on Thursday to appoint an administrator to run the troubled Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union. If a vote comes down to the wire, her absence could prove decisive.

“It’s in the best interest of everyone,” she says, for the staffing issue to be resolved, including the government. “I’m not here to be an obstructionist.”

Albanese’s office was contacted for comment.

The first-term senator quit Labor after being indefinitely suspended from the party’s caucus for breaking ranks to vote with the Greens in favour of a parliamentary motion supporting recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Her colleagues had previously rebuked Payman, who was born in Afghanistan, for using the controversial “river to the sea” phrase to describe Palestinian liberation. The acrimonious rupture between Labor and the nation’s first veil-wearing Muslim parliamentarian sparked a debate about how the major parties can better support younger politicians from non-Western backgrounds.

In a week dominated by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s call to ban people from Gaza from entering Australia on national security grounds, Payman is urging the government to push forward with a plan to create a pathway to settlement for those fleeing the war.

“I think there needs to be parity with the way we have created a pathway for Ukrainians fleeing a war zone,” she says.

Over the weekend in Perth, she says she met recent arrivals from Gaza whose loved ones remained trapped in the enclave.

“They are literally doing whatever they can to stay alive and flee from persecution, essentially. The devastation keeps growing every single day.”

Although she is best known for her views on the Middle East, most of the legislation Payman will be called to vote upon will be on domestic matters.

She says she wants to be a “voice of reason and integrity”, squarely focused on what will be best for the people of Western Australia. The Senate, after all, was designed to represent the states and territories rather than political parties.

Despite her acrimonious departure from Labor, Payman says she wants to let bygones be bygones and work constructively with the government to pass important legislation.

Druery, the so-called “preference whisperer” who worked in senior roles for former crossbench senators Derryn Hinch and Ricky Muir before joining Payman’s team, says he believes Albanese will eventually agree to her staffing allocation request.

Payman says she will continue pressing the case for additional support.

“I will keep pursuing it and asking for what I need to do my job effectively,” she says.

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