Payman’s party shares name with anti-Islam party linked to her top adviser

Fatima Payman’s new party shares a name with a right-wing party, linked to her chief adviser, that campaigned against Sharia law and floated the idea of banning the burqa.

Payman, the first person to wear a hijab in federal parliament, defected from Labor over its stance on the war in Gaza and on Wednesday launched a party, Australia’s Voice, without revealing its policies.

It will speak for “the disenfranchised, the unheard and those yearning for real change”, she said at a press conference in Parliament House to announce the name.

Another party called Australian Voice was registered between 2013 and 2015, and was part of a minor party preference-sharing network managed by Glenn Druery.

Druery, a political strategist who made his name designing elaborate preference deals for microparties and independents, has been Payman’s chief of staff since she crossed the floor and split from Labor in July.

Druery claimed the idea for the name did not come from the right-wing microparty. But one of the founders of the now-defunct group, NSW farmer Jamie Cavanough, confirmed the pair were friends and caught up at an Easter show this year.

“He asked me a couple of weeks ago if I had any objections to using the name and I said ‘no’,” Cavanough told this masthead, adding he was “not sure” if Druery took the name from his old party.

The website of the old party lists “Islam in Australia” in its menu of policy issues.

“If someone wants to remove ‘Christian values’ from our Constitution or from our policies, what do we replace them with?” the site says, according to an internet archive.

“With the values of those who would replace our present justice system with the brutal and barbaric traditions of Sharia law?”

Another page on the party’s site states: “Should Australia also ban the burqa.”

This masthead is not suggesting Cavanough shares those views, only that they are listed on the website of the party with which he was once associated.

The anti-Islam stance of the previous Australian Voice party is at odds with Payman’s religious faith.

While she has been backed by a movement called The Muslim Vote that aims to harness anger over Labor’s approach to conflict in the Middle East, the senator has repeatedly insisted her party will not have any religious affiliation.

Both Payman and Druery were contacted for comment.

On ABC’s 7.30 Report on Wednesday, Payman said she came up with the party’s name with her husband.

“I sat down with my husband and we decided that [the name] in September, when we decided that we should have a party to ensure that all of Australians voices are encompassed and heard when we are representing them here in Parliament.“

She also praised Druery, saying he’d told her to be herself and been encouraging.

“But aside from being my chief of staff, I admire his strength of conviction and also just the strategic knowledge and experience that he brings to my team.”

Payman is already defending the party’s name from criticisms that she had failed to consult Indigenous Australians who worked in the failed campaign for a Voice to parliament.

She told ABC’s Afternoon Briefing she would not change the party’s name.

“The word ‘voice’ isn’t trademarked, per se,” Payman said. “It’s important to see that Australia’s Voice as a political party will be prioritising and looking into Indigenous issues as much as it will be for all Australians, and all the concerns.”

Payman would not say if she had consulted the architects of the Uluru Statement from the Heart about the party’s name, citing privacy, adding she had consulted as best she could in a short time, “being short-staffed and [with] the PM not giving me a full staffing allocation”.

Senator Fatima Payman says her new party’s policies will come in due course.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The backstory of the party name is a reminder of the colourful political career of Druery, who has been paid by dozens of minor parties across the political spectrum to take advantage of upper house voting rules. His work has helped elect several MPs, such as Ricky Muir, who was elected to the Senate in 2013 for the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party with 0.51 per cent of the vote.

A change in voting rules after 2016 meant Druery is no longer able to use preference-swapping deals.

Druery’s association with Payman stunned her colleagues when this masthead revealed the partnership, considering his previous association with right-wing microparties.

Albanese last week dared her to test her level of support by running under her new party banner at this election rather than waiting until 2028 when her term as a senator elected under the Labor ticket expired.

She refused and will remain in the Senate another four years, threatening instead to run a candidate in Albanese’s seat of Grayndler.

Payman gave scant detail on Wednesday when pressed on any specific policy focus, saying the party’s platform would “come with time” and that previous speeches she had made could give hints.

She said her party’s candidate selection process would take place “in due course”, refusing to put her say whether her party was left or right-wing but adding she would be more pragmatic than the Greens.

Jim Reed, who conducts the Resolve Political Monitor for this masthead, said data from July showed Payman gained profile that month after defecting from Labor, but that she was rated as negatively as Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce.

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