Anthony Albanese said Fatima Payman disrupted the government’s messages around cost of living relief by conducting an interview to declare she would cross the floor again to vote in support of Palestinian statehood.
Related coverage:
Anthony Albanese said Fatima Payman disrupted the government’s messages around cost of living relief by conducting an interview to declare she would cross the floor again to vote in support of Palestinian statehood.
Related coverage:
I think this is more fair for senators than lower house. Senators represent their whole state, while MLAs represent their local electorate. I can see scenarios where the needs and wishes of your local electorate are not quite aligned with your party on all issues and in those situations, you should do what your electorate would wish of you.
This is a really murky issue for any senator. The YouGov polls show wider support for a Palestinian state than the Government does. But it also shows that more of us are unsure on this topic than those who support/don’t support. Which stands to reason, the region is really far away from us and we aren’t all that involved, really.
The pessimist in me dismisses much of the government’s position on the conflict as aligning with US interests. Which takes us back to Senator Payman. On this particular topic, I believe her firm position probably both is representative of a decent slice of her state as well as being a foil on the generic support of all things US from her party. Good on her.
I’m not really into party politics, so I don’t really have a stake in whether she should be ejected from her party for this. But if pressed, I’d say they’d be making a mistake to eject her over this matter. This is not a major party policy, and its position does not have wide-spread community support.
We are actually kinda involved, as a US protectorate (Prove me wrong pollies, prove me wrong! defy your masters. Ask the Kurds how always allying with the US works out) we tend to support their interests in the middle east, also we ship Israel weapons except we claim we don’t because apparently if I give you a trigger, a barrel, and a receiver and you have the rest I haven’t technically given you a weapon under international law 🙄. I think Australia has helped them repair some of the planes they’re using to murder children.
But I do broadly agree with your analysis. I think the issue isn’t as simple as “loyalty pledge evil! mean evil labor” but also like what it’s being used for here is absolutely horrible and could most charitably be interpreted as a system backfiring and least charitably ghoulish power brokers squashing the soul out of a decent person to back warhawks.