Fatima Payman’s new political party to have teal appeal

Former Labor senator Fatima Payman will move within days to set up a new political party with an agenda that aims to tap into middle Australia’s concerns about the cost of living.

The party, which will aim to run Senate candidates in every state with a broad policy platform spanning aged care, the environment and housing affordability, will not be religion-based and will not carry her name, according to sources familiar with discussions but not able to discuss it publicly.

Independent Senator Fatima Payman’s new party will not be a single-issue or religious party.Credit: James Brickwood

Payman, who now sits as an independent for Western Australia, will look to capitalise on growing dissatisfaction with the major parties, offering a policy agenda aimed at siphoning votes from moderate Liberals, as well as Labor and Greens voters, following a similar strategy by teal candidates in the lower house.

The first-term senator, who resigned from the Labor Party in July after crossing the floor to support a Greens motion to recognise a Palestinian state, said in a press conference at the time to “watch this space” when asked about whether she would establish a political party.

However, the party, which will go by an inclusive name, will not be a “single-issue party”, and Payman has previously discouraged Muslim Australians from forming a religious political party, saying a new movement needed a broader base to succeed.

In September, Payman hired Glenn Druery – a political strategist known as the “preference whisperer” because of his record in helping micro and minor parties get elected to the Senate through preference deals – as her chief of staff.

Earlier this month, Druery, speaking on an ABC Australian Story episode, said if anyone were to be elected or re-elected to the Senate, they needed a political party.

Political parties are listed “above the line” on Senate ballot papers, while unaligned candidates are only listed “below the line”. In the 2016 Senate elections, more than 90 per cent of people voted above the line, according to the Australian Electoral Commission.

Last week, Druery told The Australian Financial Review if he was involved, it would not be in “a single-issue, religious-based party”. Druery’s strategy for minor parties in the past has been to run candidates both in the upper and lower house, especially in marginal seats.

Over the past few months, Payman has taken positions both to the right and left of Labor, including opposing the party’s ban on live sheep exports and calling for more action on housing affordability. Payman’s party will also seek to campaign on issues affecting Indigenous people – a sore point for Labor which will not want attention drawn to its failed Voice referendum.

Jim Reed, who conducts the Resolve Political Monitor for this masthead, said the latest data, collected in July, showed Payman gained profile that month after defecting from Labor, but that she was rated negatively at a similar rate to people like Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce at that time.

“That was also the case in her home state of WA, where more people thought she should give up her seat to a Labor replacement than carry on under her own banner,” he said.

Reed said Payman could build a following before the election, but that the only people to have held her in positive regard in July were Greens voters. “If anything, Payman will take [vote] share from them,” he said.

Payman, who in 2022 was the third-youngest member to have been elected to the Senate, is not up for re-election until 2028. However, Druery told The Guardian on Thursday it was very likely there would be at least one Senate position in play in every state during the upcoming election.

At a press conference on Friday, asked again whether she intended to start her own political party, Payman said, “people are free to make their speculations as they choose to”.

A formal announcement about the party is expected this week.

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