Opinion: Expulsion of Fatima Payman set to damage Labor

It might be party policy to expel MPs who cross the floor, but it’s not a good look and could damage Labor, writes Paul Williams.

One of the most common complaints I’ve heard about the Australian Labor Party over the years is that it appears undemocratic because it forces its MPs to vote a certain way in parliament.

Where, in the Liberal and National parties, a Coalition MP crossing the floor to vote with the enemy will at least result in dirty looks – and possibly a threatened preselection – for Labor MPs it means expulsion from the party and, quite likely, the end of a political career.

That’s why the recent case of the young Muslim West Australian senator Fatima Payman – exiled from the caucus room before her resignation from Labor last week over her decision to vote with the Greens in support of recognising a Palestinian state – has brought a very old Labor tradition into new focus.

On the surface, such a rule does make Labor look old-fashioned at best, and downright dictatorial at worst. But there’s a good ideological reason for Labor’s strict insistence on its MPs signing the pledge to always vote in parliament according to caucus decisions, even if individual MPs might disagree with those decisions. That same pledge also insists that no Labor member is either a communist or a fascist.

The tradition began in New South Wales – Labor’s co-founding colony, with Queensland, in 1891 – to ensure elected MPs adopted the so-called delegate model of parliamentary representation. Labor has always seen itself not as a socialist party but a labourist trade union party, with MPs mere delegates carrying out the wishes of the broader community of Australian workers.

That tradition was adopted in direct contrast to the conservative British model – propounded by 18th century MP Edmund Burke – who said MPs were trustees of the voting public (in those days a much smaller electorate of the privileged rich). This tradition says that electors vote for the qualities of the candidate and not the party and, as such, voters trust the elected MP, in voting on their conscience, will always do the “right” thing.

But we all know what chaos the Australian parliament would be in if all 151 House MPs and all 76 senators voted on their own whims on each and every bill.

Nonetheless, in Payman’s case, Labor’s iron rule of caucus solidarity will damage the party.

Fatima Payman is now an Independent senator. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

How much is yet to be seen. But, any way you slice it, Labor’s exile of a young woman, a newly elected MP of a minority faith, standing up for personal principle, looks like an act of bullying.

It also brings into sharper relief the very delicate issue – Labor’s treading of a very fine line in trying to placate both the Jewish and Muslim communities – that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would rather not walk.

And that brings us to the possibility of a Muslim movement – a loose group of Muslim candidates organised not unlike the Teals – to contest seats (and damage Labor) at the next federal election.

The most likely places we’ll see Muslim candidates are in the 14 seats comprising Western Sydney – an area that has damaged Labor many times before.

But the chances of a Muslim Teal-like wave swamping the House of Representatives at the next election are remote at best.

First, it’s insulting to suggest the Muslim community votes as a single bloc. Different families on different incomes in different suburbs will have different priorities. Second, Muslim populations in these seats are far from a majority, averaging less than 20 per cent.

Third, of Western Sydney’s 14 seats, just three – Parramatta, Reid and Werriwa – are marginal, held by Labor by less than six percentage points.

But a Muslim movement can still play a pivotal role at the next election by way of mischief-making in its preference allocations. But, even here, their impact could be limited, and even contradictory.

For example, if a Muslim Independent candidate wants to punish Labor, will she number Labor below a candidate of the Liberal Party led by an Opposition Leader who has taken an even tougher stand on pro-Palestinian protests?

Or will that candidate preference a Greens candidate sympathetic to the Palestinian cause? But if the Muslim Independent scores fewer votes than the Greens, Greens preferences will flow overwhelmingly to Labor anyway.

Even so, there’s no guarantee of a Muslim-Greens alliance, given many Muslims’ opposition to such Greens cornerstone policies as same-sex marriage.

No, the Muslim vote is unlikely to damage Albanese at the next election. But the rather clumsy way he has dealt with Senator Payman just might.