Payman alleges older male colleague made sexually suggestive and racial comments

Independent senator Fatima Payman alleges an older male colleague made sexually suggestive and racially offensive comments towards her.

Payman – who is Muslim and does not drink alcohol – told the ABC’s Hack program on triple j that a male colleague was intoxicated at a social function and pressed her to drink alcohol.

Fatima Payman says an older male colleague made sexually suggestive and racial comments towards her.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Comments included him saying “let’s get some wine into you and see you dance on the table,” Payman alleged.

“I don’t drink, and I don’t need to be made ... to feel left out because you do,” the senator responded.

Payman said the comments were sexually suggestive and made her feel singled out as a Muslim woman who did not consume alcohol.

“I told this colleague, ‘hey, I’m drawing a line, mate’, and moved on to making a formal complaint,” she said. She said the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service dealt with her complaint swiftly. Payman did not say when or where the alleged incident took place.

Payman told this masthead the comments were made at a formal work dinner. The colleague was sitting opposite her and raised his glass of red wine before making the comments.

The comments were made in early 2023, when Payman, 28 at the time, was the nation’s youngest federal politician, having been elected as a senator for Western Australia in 2022.

“Now that we have new people coming, including the youngest Labor senator Charlotte Walker who is just 21 years old, parliament needs to make sure that young people and women feel safe regardless of where they’re working,” Payman said.

“Young and diverse people need to feel that sense of comfort and confidence to speak out on inappropriate behaviour.”

In July last year, the senator defected from Labor over the party’s perceived lack of support for Palestinians, crossing the floor to vote on a Greens motion of support for Palestinian statehood. Labor rules bind caucus members to the party’s collective decisions, and MPs who vote against those risk being thrown out.

The senator then created her own political party, Australia’s Voice, in October 2024, which had an agenda to tap into middle Australia’s concerns about the cost of living. The party ran Senate candidates in every state at the 2025 election, but failed to have any elected.

Payman has also hired Glenn Druery as her chief of staff – 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.

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