Labor senator Fatima Payman free to the cross line on ­Palestine

WA senator Fatima Payman will likely avoid expulsion or suspension from the parliamentary ALP after defiantly crossing the floor and voting with the Greens against the government’s position on ­Palestine.

Labor’s Fatima Payman joins independents Lidia Thorpe and David Pocock as she crosses the floor in support of a motion backing ­Palestinian statehood. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

West Australian senator Fatima Payman will likely avoid expulsion or suspension from the parliamentary Labor Party after defiantly crossing the floor and voting with the Greens against the government’s position on ­Palestine.

Despite Labor MPs telling The Australian they believed the 28-year-old senator needed to be kicked out or suspended, a government spokeswoman said there was no “mandated sanction”.

Labor MPs said they were ­hoping Anthony Albanese would call a snap caucus meeting on Wednesday to decide her fate, but a senior party source said the Prime Minister was unlikely to ­instigate a move to punish her.

Sources said the issue was also unlikely to be examined by the ALP’s national executive, which could suspend or cancel her party membership. Some MPs argued it would set a precedent to not punish her for breaking the caucus rule that parliamentarians vote in the chamber “in support of propositions upon which the party has a collective attitude”.

The Greens on Tuesday moved a Senate motion that parliament recognise Palestine as a state, which Senator Payman called a “moral and ethical ­imperative” for her party in an ­article written last week. Senator Payman, who broke from the party last month to declare Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to “genocide”, said she had not ­spoken to Mr Albanese or any of her colleagues before crossing the floor.

“To everyone who asked me what I was going to do with this motion, I said I would follow my conscience,” she said. She claimed she made the decision to cross the floor, which has not been done by a Labor member in decades, while “sitting in the chamber” during the debate.

The issue of Palestinian statehood has loomed large over ­national and state Labor conferences, with the Socialist Left pushing for immediate recognition. One Labor source said Senator Payman had become a symbol of the larger ideological division within the party over the Israel-Palestine situation.

Instead of voting against the Greens’ motion outright – as the government did in the House of Representatives this month – Labor sought to amend the wording so that it called for the recognition of Palestine “as part of a peace process in support of a two-state solution and a just and ­enduring peace”. Labor’s amendment was ­rejected by the ­Coalition and the Greens, forcing a vote on the original wording.

An government spokeswoman said: “Senator Payman maintains strong Labor values and intends to continue representing the Western Australians who elected her as a Labor senator.

“There is no mandated sanction in these circumstances and previous caucus members have crossed the floor without facing expulsion.

“As reflected in our amendment, the government supports the recognition of a Palestinian state as part of a peace process ­towards a two-state solution.”

Labor figures who argued Senator Payman should not be expelled said former Left faction heavyweight Bruce Childs remained in the party despite opposing the Hawke government’s position on the Gulf War in 1991. But Childs, along with former ­senators John Coates and Margaret Reynolds, only abstained from a motion supporting Australia’s ­involvement in the war and they still found themselves suspended from caucus.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said Senator Payman should be held accountable.

“The Greens can’t be allowed to set the agenda on Israel and Australian foreign policy,” he said. “They have brought anti-Semitism into the mainstream and have legitimised violent protests. This is what Senator Payman has now ­attached herself to.”

Senator Payman, a former union organiser and secretary of Labor’s multicultural branch before entering parliament, drew criticism from WA colleagues who said her elevation to a Senate spot so early in her career had “put noses out of joint” before the war in Gaza. One source said she was picked over people who had made far greater contributions.

“She had knocked on a couple of doors as part of a couple of Labor campaigns, then she got a job at the union, and then she ended up on the Senate ticket. Sometimes the party works in strange and mysterious ways,” the source said.

“There’s a strong desire for ­diversity, felt particularly by the Left, but in this case that might have been a bit of overreach.”

The source said her stance on Israel had angered more senior members of the government, including some from her own Left faction. “Some of them are trying really hard to straddle a deeply nuanced issue and are a bit annoyed with what she’s done,” they said.

Greens leader Adam Bandt leapt on Senator Payman’s actions on Tuesday, which he said showed “that every Labor MP who said they care about the plight of Palestinians are utterly cowardly and full of nothing but hollow words”.

“If Senator Payman can cross the floor to vote to recognise ­Palestine, then why can’t Peter Khalil or Ged Kearney, or Justine Elliot or Graham Perrett or Jim Chalmers?” he said.

“All of them represent communities that want to see peace and want to see an end to the ­invasion and yet have refused to use the one thing that they’ve got in this parliament, which is their vote.”