Payman furore to come to a head as Albanese suggests exit

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has all but confirmed rogue Labor senator Fatima Payman will leave the party this week, comparing her actions to those of Senator Lidia Thorpe, who left the Greens to campaign against the Voice to parliament.

“Senator Payman, of course, has made a decision to place herself outside the Labor Party; that is a decision that she made,” Albanese said in question time on Wednesday.

Senator Fatima Payman in question time last week.Credit: James Brickwood

Multiple informed sources, who were not authorised to speak publicly, confirmed Payman intended to make a statement about her future on Thursday at which she is expected to announce her formal split from Labor.

The crisis for Labor began last week when Payman, the first MP to wear a hijab in parliament, crossed the floor of the Senate to vote with the Greens on a motion backing Palestinian statehood, against the rules of the Labor caucus.

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

“I expect further announcements in the coming days, which will explain exactly what [Payman’s] strategy has been, over now more than a month,” Albanese said.

Payman was stood down from caucus and Albanese asked her to consider her position as an MP on Sunday, leading her to publish a statement on Monday claiming she had been exiled, intimidated by colleagues to resign, and was considering her political future.

Late on Wednesday, the government put a motion forward in the House recognising Palestine as part of a two-state solution. The Greens and the Coalition voted against the motion.

This masthead revealed on Tuesday that Payman had been in talks for weeks with election strategist Glenn Druery and a coalition of Muslim groups planning to field candidates against Labor in both the Senate and House of Representatives at the next election.

As a pro-Palestine group coalition courted Payman, Islamic leaders said their community believed their support for the Voice referendum had not been paid back by Labor following the outbreak of the Gaza conflict, and the community had been galvanised by the senator’s suspension.

Payman’s suspension has dominated the week in parliament and dragged the focus away from the introduction of tax cuts on July 1.

Asked by Greens leader Adam Bandt why the government had placed more sanctions on Payman than it had on the Israeli government for the large-scale destruction and death toll wrought on Gaza, the prime minister replied: “I am asked about the political party that I belong to and I have been loyal to my whole life and people making a decision to distance themselves from their former party.”

He said Bandt occupied a crossbench full of politicians who used to be members of mainstream parties.

“Senator Thorpe, of course, was elected earlier in the last election as a member of the Greens political party and chose to depart from that,” he said.

“From time to time, that happens. And that has happened in terms of the senator making a decision, that she wished to be able to take an independent position when it comes to the Middle East.”

Thorpe quit the Greens last year over a split in their stances on the Voice.

Privately, Albanese and senior ministers are furious over what now appears to have been a calculated plan by Payman to link up with Druery – nicknamed the “preference whisperer” and who has worked for a range of independent and minor parties over the past decade – to inflict maximum damage on Labor.

One senior MP, who asked not to be named, said there was widespread expectation within Labor that Payman would emerge as the leader of a new Muslim party, and that her position as a senator would make it easier to register the new party.

Her punishment sparked condemnation of the government by national and state-based Muslim organisations, including the Australian National Imams Council, while two separate Muslim groups fielding candidates pledged solidarity with Payman.

One group, The Muslim Vote, is run by western Sydney Sunni Muslim community leader Sheikh Wesam Charkawi, who was not contactable on Wednesday. The other, Muslim Votes Matter, is organised by barrister and former policeman Mahmud Hawila, who told this masthead earlier this week volunteers were already doorknocking in the south-western Sydney seats of Labor ministers Tony Burke and Jason Clare.

Lebanese Muslim Association secretary Gamel Kheir said the political movement came from the community’s anger over the government’s support for Israel after the Hamas attacks on October 7, despite Islamic leaders’ support for the Voice to parliament referendum.

“The unfortunate circumstances of timing made it very relevant, sadly,” he said, adding the association had gone “out of our way” to invite the prime minister to Sydney’s Lakemba mosque during the referendum campaign. “Then the very next day we had the 7th of October.”

However, he said Albanese’s treatment of Payman “was the straw that broke the camel’s back”.

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