Fatima Payman has recruited a familiar face for Australia’s Voice | Samantha Maiden
If you thought something sounded familiar when the ex-Labor Senator unveiled her new party, you weren’t alone, writes Samantha Maiden.
Opinion
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Demonstrating all the originality of a Chiko Roll and none of the iconic status of the deep fried treat, exiled Labor Senator Fatima Payman unveiled her new political party this week.
It’s called Australia’s Voice.
If that sounds strangely familiar you are not mistaken.
There was another party called Australian Voice around 10 years ago that ran candidates before disappearing.
Even the graphic design of this new incarnation looks awfully familiar.
In fact it looks eerily similar to the 29-year-old Senator Payman’s former employer United Voice, featuring the same burgundy colour and what even looks like the same font.
The new website is “authorised” by J. Stokes, Australia’s Voice, which would be her husband Jacob Stokes, who it’s understood works in the office as an unpaid volunteer.
It lists its party headquarters as the investment property she bought in Canberra’s northern suburbs for $450,000 last year.
The new website includes a motto of sorts for Australia’s newest political party. “If we have to drag the two major parties kicking and screaming to do what needs to be done, we will.”
But what exactly does Senator Payman plan to drag the political parties kicking and screaming to do?
That’s a bit of a mystery as her website includes no policies, no statement of values, although it does link to Senator Payman’s TikTok, Facebook and Instagram accounts.
The TikTok accounts include a bit of gear about reforming negative gearing and housing affordability.
Weirdly, new recruits, we were told, will not be required to oppose the war in Gaza, the issue that saw her join the crossbench.
“This is more than a party. It is a movement for a fairer, more inclusive Australia,” she told a press conference at Parliament House on Wednesday.
“Together we will hold our leaders accountable and ensure that your voice, Australia’s voice, will never be silenced.
“Australians are fed up with the major parties having a duopoly, a stranglehold over our democracy.”
That might be true. But it remains to be seen what, if anything, Senator Payman can do about it.
What we do know is that she’s hired an old face in the form of so-called preference whisperer Glenn Druery.
Who is he? Druery first rose to minor fame with the formation of the Outdoor Recreation Party during elections for the New South Wales Legislative Council.
By encouraging many minor groups to contest the election, candidates who only received a very small percentage of people’s first-preference votes could be elected, a practice that became known as “preference harvesting”.
In 1999 it helped contribute to a situation where 264 candidates from 81 different parties contested the election, which resulted in what became known as the “tablecloth ballot paper”.
He later formed the Minor Party Alliance which helped more than 30 minor parties and independents with advice and guidance during the 2013 Australian Senate election.
After all that he became the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party Senator Ricky Muir’s senior adviser in July 2014, before he was sacked by Mr Muir less than a month later and escorted by security out of parliament.
Is Senator Payman aware of all this complex history? It’s hard to say but it does risk sending the message that the tail in the form of the veteran journeyman Mr Druery is wagging the novice senator’s dog.
Druery later emerged as a taxpayer-funded adviser to Derryn Hinch and again hit the headlines two years ago when Angry Victorians party leader Heston Russell leaked a video to the Herald Sun of him talking about a potential preference deal.
In 2022, after a fight with the Animal Justice Party, he complained that opponents “spread my legs and just kicked and kicked and kicked until I fell down”.
“I mean, I felt like I’d just watched someone deliberately run over my dog – it’s the worst election I’ve ever been involved in,’’he said.
He was, he raged, being bothered by people who were wallowing in a “vegan lard of glorified lies and deception”.
Let’s hope, for Senator Payman and Jacob Stokes’ sakes, that their new recruit remains happy in the service.
Originally published as Fatima Payman has recruited a familiar face for Australia’s Voice | Samantha Maiden
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