James Campbell: Payman’s betrayal damages all her Labor colleagues

It’s a measure of how far the ALP is down the identity politics plughole that Fatima Payman suffered no great consequences for giving the finger to her party – despite damaging her colleagues’ re-election chances, writes James Campbell.

It’s a measure of how far the ALP is down the identity politics plughole that Fatima Payman will likely suffer no consequences for giving the finger to her party – despite damaging her colleagues’ re-election chances and making her leader look compromised and weak.

From time immemorial one of the hard rules of Labor politics has been that, whatever the rules say, breaking the pledge that binds all its MPs to support collective decisions cannot go unpunished.

But as angry as Labor MPs are that Payman is going to get away with flipping off the party that plucked her from obscurity two years ago and gave her six years in the Senate, they appear to have accepted that, in her case, the rules just don’t apply.

“How do you suspend a woman in a hijab? Everyone would go insane,” as one of her of colleagues put it.

For months, inner-city Labor MPs have suffered political damage from holding the Government’s line on the Gaza conflict in seats that in some cases have large numbers of Muslim voters.

Senator Fatima Payman holds a press conference after crossing the floor to support the Greens' motion to have the senate recognise Palestine as a state. Picture: NewsWire

Those same Labor MPs have been doing so while under physical siege from protests that they believe are being directed by elements within the Greens.

They’ve even managed to keep the Prime Minister’s own electorate office in Marrickville effectively closed since January. By siding with the mob, Payman has made the chances of those Labor MPs surviving the next election that much harder, as it took Adam Bandt about 25 seconds to realise.

“What Senator Payman’s action shows is that every Labor MP who said they care about the plight of Palestinians are utterly cowardly and full of nothing but hollow words,” the Greens leader crowed.

“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?”

As much as I disagree with the premise, it has to be said Bandt’s question is a good one.

In the cases of Elliot, Kearney and Chalmers, you could answer:

Because they hold ministerial office, and while it’s one thing for backbenchers to be voting against the Government, you expect those three would have to resign if they wanted to exercise their consciences.

There’s another – smaller – group of Labor MPs who have a right to be filthy at Payman’s actions and Albo’s decision to let her get away with it.

That’s the ALP’s dwindling band of Friends of Israel who have also been forced to suck things up since last October.

The bloke with the most obvious reason to be aggrieved here is the Victorian MP Josh Burns.

Burns’s seat of Macnamara takes in the Melbourne suburb of Caulfield, which was once described by a British visitor as the closest thing to pre-war Krakow existing anywhere in the world today.

Poor Burns, who is himself Jewish, has been hit with the double-whammy – from the left he’s been attacked by pro-Palestinian protesters, who last week attempted to burn down his office.

Of course, he’s also suffering from the wholesale desertion of Labor’s Jewish voters, who are appalled at the Government’s “even-handed” treatment of the current conflict.

Burns has been allowed to get away with venting his frustration at the Government’s decision to back a UN vote on Palestinian statehood that has incensed the Jewish community.

But do you reckon Albo would show him the same level of indulgence if he started voting against the Government in the House of Representatives?

No, I don’t either.

But it isn’t just backbenchers who have the right to be peeved at Payman and, more particularly, at Albo’s weak response.

Let’s spare a thought for the only Jewish member of Cabinet, the Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.

According to several people I have spoken to, Dreyfus spoke passionately against the aforementioned UN vote when it came up in Cabinet.

Indeed he and the NDIS Minister Bill Shorten were the only ministers who spoke against the position.

(Incidentally, senior members of the Jewish community are all convinced that despite his professions of support for the Jewish state, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles spoke in favour of the proposal.)

It was to no avail. To the delight of Hamas, Australia joined Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Yemen and Libya to upgrade Palestine’s UN status.

It was a bitter blow to Australia’s Jewish community with whom it has no doubt caused Dreyfus to lose a lot of face.

But, like the good soldier he is, he hasn’t said a word against it. How has his leader repaid that loyalty? By allowing a first term Western Australian Senator to trash the century-old traditions of his party.

Originally published as James Campbell: Payman’s betrayal damages all her Labor colleagues