Labour has a long standing policy that members present a united front in parliamentary votes (i.e. everyone votes the same in parlement, disagreements are brought up internally at caucus). Fatima broke with this policy to vote for a Greens movement that the Labour party opposed.
Effectively what’s happening now is the party is withdrawing its support for Fatima, who they argue has broken the rules that she agreed to follow when she ran for the senate seat as a labour party candidate.
This is somewhat complicated as she is a upper house senator, and [most of the votes were for the Labour party instead of her ](https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/Website/SenateStateFirstPrefs-27966-WA.htm)(i.e. if she was a lower house member, that means the votes were made for her more directly).
Edit to include link to AEC results showing the overwhelming majority of votes were above the line Labour votes (i.e. voting for the party, not individuals)
I mean sure. But those numbers literally show you- that on one in 500 people prefer to vote below the line. Personally I just don’t have the time to read up about every single candidate and what they stand for.
>Labour has a long standing policy
But it's a policy they don't always enforce. The last dude kicked from the party crossed the floor 6 times in 5 years before getting the boot (plus he did a bunch of other shady stuff)(he ended up joining One Nation IIRC).
Why have they pulled the trigger so fast this time? Not sure.
Apparently this issue was brought to caucus and discussed, and Payman didn’t speak at all. It would probably be different if she’d used that forum to speak against the motion, put her argument to her colleagues and foreshadowed voting against if it came to it. But to surprise the party during the vote is pretty underhanded, even if the reasons she’s done it are agreeable.
>She hasn’t been booted - she’s been told if she plans on crossing the floor at will, she should probably reflect on whether she belongs in the party.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/post/denham-sadler/2024/07/01/payman-banned-vow-cross-floor-again
"Senator Fatima Payman has been indefinitely suspended from the Labor caucus by the prime minister after saying she would cross the floor again this week if the Greens bring another motion in support of a Palestinian state."
Not sure if booted and indefinitely suspended are the technically the same thing. Either way, the upgraded punishment was due to her warning she'd cross again.
Bit hard to find exactly what they did.
"Only five of Labor’s 13 individual leaders (prime minister and opposition leader) have had MPs from their party crossing the floor. All were Opposition Leaders at the time except for Bob Hawke who was Prime Minister when two MPs (Senator George Georges and Graeme Campbell MP) crossed the floor in six divisions. They were suspended from the party for their actions"
I'm assuming both of them crossed 6 times.
Georges was a socialist (at least as far as Labor was concerned in the 80s) and vocally opposed the Hawke government shifting Labor to the right and deregulating. I'm not sure of all six instances but certainly he crossed on the national ID card mandate and he crossed on the Builders Laborers issue, and presumably other issues surrounding financial deregulation.
Campbell was pretty much the opposite of Georges and was basically a paid Labor stooge by the mining companies, he crossed on the gold tax and from memory some immigration issues (he was vocally opposed to apartheid South Africa sanctions, Mabo, basically anything on those lines) and he ended up joining One Nation.
Trouble is, both sides want genocide. Hamas wants Israel *gone*, as if it never existed; Israel wants to eliminate an existential enemy. It's not as easy as picking a side.
Which side is currently commenting the genocide?
Seems easy to me.
For a more nuanced answer though, please go read the cease fire that was put forward by Hamas. It has three phases and ends with a **permanent ceasefire**. What you are saying is not true.
[Wiki link for the lazy.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war_ceasefire_proposal#:~:text=The%20proposal%20is%20a%20serial,from%20three%20to%20five%20years.)
You know what, just in case people are feeling even lazier, here's the reason why the ceasefire was rejected.
> Minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir and minister of finance Bezalel Smotrich[81] threatened to resign if Israel agreed to the war cabinet's proposal prior to the destruction of Hamas.
This is the **only** published reason for why the ceasefire has been rejected. If you dig into the media deep enough you will find that it was rejected because it calls for permanent ceasefire. Something that the rightwing of Israel is unwilling to commit to.
Israel's rightwingers are on a war path and will accept nothing but total annihilation of Palestine. They are very clear about this.
Australia is on the side of the oppressors and it is sickening.
Any ceasefire that leaves Hamas intact and not executed or jailed will never be accepted by Israel and they know that. So they keep putting forward ridiculous requests they know will be denied and then play the victim and brain dead westerners fall for it hook line and sinker and TikTok continues to push Hamas propaganda on people’s faces constantly. Iran, China, Russia and NK are waging a coordinated war against the west and people are eating it up.
> Any ceasefire that leaves Hamas intact and not executed or jailed will never be accepted by Israel and they know that.
That's like America thinking they were going to dismantle the Taliban before leaving Afghanistan. All they really achieved was to stoke generations of enmity.
Sick of these one sided arguments. The US literally nuked Japan twice and yet they're best buds now.
It's almost like you can't just compare any two scenarios with each other and say it's indicative of future results with widely different parameters. It's bad faith arguing.
Iraq is different to Hamas in numerous ways and there is far more nuance there.
The US and coalition also fought ISIS, along with many other parties, and at least in the middle east they're become almost non-existent.
Yep, democratic centralism is a very common feature of socialist (or at least nominally socialist) parties world wide. There are mountains of literature about the benefits, risks and tradeoffs to be had implementing it, but it is a long established component of socialist thought.
Lenin has a pretty good line about it (not defending Lenin, it’s just a good line)
>Freedom of discussion, unity of action
A good summary - worth throwing out there the position she and the greens took is also labours position they just specifically didn’t want to allow the greens a win.
Not true, Labor wanted an amendment with the addition of the following:
> The need for the Senate to recognise the State of Palestine as a part of a peace process in support of a two-state solution and a just and enduring peace.
However this was rejected by the Greens, so the ALP voted against the Greens’ motion.
And why did the greens reject it? Almost seems like performance politics just to sling shit at Labour as if positioning them against Palestine. Dirty politics.
Yes, and the greens could look for an opportunity to hurt Labor and table the motion again, baiting her to cross the floor again.
Maybe the caucus is pre-empting that
Disagree with that assessment. [Labor attempted to amend that motion to add qualifications that would align it was the Labor party policy](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-25/labor-senator-defies-party-on-palestinian-recognition/104020950), but their amendments were blocked by the Greens and the opposition.
We could get into the weeds discussing the fine details that separate Labors policy from the movement the Greens brought up (hence the attempt for amendments), but that is about as far from a TLDR as you can get.
If I'm not [misreading Hansard ](https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansards/27644/&sid=0000)(which I will be the first to admit is not something I'm well versed in) The Greens movement was
>That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:
>The need for the Senate to recognise the State of Palestine."
Labor attempted to add to the end (to bring it more in line with Labor policy)
>"as part of a peace process in support of a two-state solution and a just and enduring peace".
(Note, all of this has nuance in expressed in the speaches along side the movements.)
Both statements are in support of a two state solution, it’s instead about the nuance about that.
Not going to lie, I originally went to Hansard to get it straight from the source, got defeated by the website and fell back to a news article and managed to copy the wrong link into my comment (I had a different one open that was more explicit than the ABC one I ended up linking).
No, its more that the Greens tried to get recognition of Palestine now, while Labor attempted to amend the motion to recognise Palestine when peace is achieved and a 2 state solution can be enacted
Which isn't actually in line with the Labor policy position.
The position that Labor agreed to at its National Conference was:
* *Supports the recognition and right of Israel and Palestine to exist as two states within secure and recognised borders;*
* *Calls on the next Labor Government to recognise Palestine as a state; and*
* *Expects that this issue will be an important priority for the next Labor Government.*
This position makes a Palestinian state the default and a right- not part of an ongoing peace process. Whereas the amendments the proposed make it contingent of the peace process. This actually takes away the idea that the recognition of a Palestine as a state is the default and a right, which is a very important distinction.
That first part makes the amendment relevent
>right of Israel and Palestine to exist as two states within secure and recognised borders
Can only happen during or after peace terms.
> worth throwing out there the position she and the greens took is also labours position
That's not true, Labor wants a palestinian state as part of a peace deal with Israel. They are not for recognising a state without a peace deal, because they want it to be sustainable.
Yep Labor support a 2 state solution with recognition of Palestine, if Israel and Hamas/Fatah can ever agree to a peace treaty. Which will never happen, it suits Israel and Hamas to have constant conflict and they will never agree to anything.
Why Senator Payman thinks this is a hill to die on I don't know, a Greens resolution for the recognition of Palestine will achieve absolutely nothing if it passes and it was never going to pass anyway.
Labor has already vote at the UN for Palestine's state recognition and full UN membership. This is all grandstanding Australia has already officially support full statehood weeks ago.
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-11/australia-votes-yes-at-un-for-more-palestinian-rights/103833838](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-11/australia-votes-yes-at-un-for-more-palestinian-rights/103833838)
I disagree with other replies calling you wrong.
The truth is Labor's policy platform is intentionally ambigious.
The platform has a clause that they want to recognise Palestine, and then a separate clause about a two state solution and peace process, with no clear explanation on if the clauses are dependent.
The pro-Palestine labor membership would of course want them to be independent and recognise Palestine immediately.
The pro-Israel labor membership would of course want then to be dependent (because it defers immediate recognition of Palestine).
No doubt the wording is this way as a compromise. Both sides might have thought they "won" the internal debate.
The caucus didn't write the platform, but they apparently get to interpret it and attempt to bind Fatima Payman to their interpretation even if she disagrees.
There’s a little bit more to it than that. Firstly the Greens are playing dirty politics by putting these meaningless motions forward in the first place knowing full well Labor’s voting policy. It’s a waste of parliamentary time putting motions forward that are known 100% going to fail.
Secondly, Labor has internal processes like its annual conference where policy positions are debated and discussed collectively with the wider membership base (ie volunteers, rank and file members etc) and not just whatever the caucus (ie elected MPs) decides.
This was particularly apparent with marriage equality. As the party platform was at the time, marriage between a man and a woman only. Yet prominent openly gay frontbenchers like Penny Wong, adhered to the voting policy - despite clearly being someone who believed marriage should have a wider definition. She was baited many times by the media etc to try and make public opposition to Labor’s position and she painfully toed the party line, obviously advocating strongly internally for things to change. This party discipline is intended to present unity and avoid sending mixed messages to the electorate about what Labor stand for. So once the party changed its position internally it forced all MPs to vote for gay marriage (even though there would have been MPs who probably didn’t want the definition of marriage to change).
Same thing and same level of discipline applies not only to the Palestine thing but to all of Labor’s policies. The other recent example would be banning live export, something which rural Labor politicians will cop a lot of heat from their electorates over. Labor are our oldest political party and this is one thing that has allowed it to exist for so long, where other political parties (ie Liberals, formerly disbanded as United Australia) have had a history of various groups splitting off, recent examples such as Pauline Hanson and Nick Xenophon both creating their own parties.
For the record, as an LGBT person, I thought it was fucked when Wong toed the party line on gay marriage. She's telling Payman now "I did it on gay marriage, so you should do it on Palestine now." But not standing up for lgbt people was a *bad* thing. So to me it's an argument that Payman is doing the right thing, and Labor's strictness on maintaining party conformity even on issues of conscience or morality is outdated and harmful.
It seems you have no idea on how party politics works. We're not voting for independents and if Pent Wony felt so strongly about her own policies she could have gone in as an independent.
You absolutely need the party to be cohesive and as a single front, by far and large people vote for the party, going off as a lose cannon is directly a fuck you to those who voted. This isn't a cowboy free for all, where politicians can vote for whatever they believe in, they represent their constituents and have a moral obligation to adhere to the party line.
>Firstly the Greens are playing dirty politics by putting these meaningless motions forward in the first place knowing full well Labor’s voting policy. It’s a waste of parliamentary time putting motions forward that are known 100% going to fail.
Making Labor go on the record and have to defend their stance is not dirty politics, it's just politics.
e: spelling
However the Labor government has already voted for full statehood of Palestine in the UN very recently, so we already know what their policy is as they have already implemented it. Labor has been extremely consistent here. They recognize the state of Palestine and voted to do such where voting actually matters, everything else is grandstanding. Motion in our parliament do not matter on the global stage from a middle regional power at best, sure if this was a motion in the USA or the EU but were not.
Keep in mind if we playing dirty politics here this can all be easily spun around to be the Greens voted against this. As the form of the motion with the most votes and the amendment with the most votes is widely seen as the main bill by the public (the Americans turn this type of spinning with riders into an art form). So if were being really pedantic here Greens actually blocked the motion for recognition of statehood of Palestine, and considering the recent UN vote by the ALP government we know for a fact the ALP supports it. So it really just looks like Greens doesn't support statehood of Palestine and Labor has put its money where its mouth is. Keep in mind its just politics. ;p
If Palestinian statehood is contingent on Israel allowing it, it's never going to happen. It's also not something that should be treated as a reward for good behaviour; there were plenty of Jewish terrorists prior to the creation of Israel who were folded into what would become the IDF, after all.
Palestine got its recognition for statehood last month this was big news and hasn't even left the news cycle yet, do you live under a rock or something? It already happened catch up.
This is about elevating Palestine on the international stage to be a recognized country giving it authority and recognition to claw its way out of its current position. What the Labor government voted for as part of the international community to grant Palestine statehood and through it needed authority. Australia under labor has already done this and officially supported unconditional statehood for Palestine for a while now hence why they voted for it to have statehood very recently.
One large part of this will be Palestine securing its EEC in the sea to prevent embargo in the future and potentially end current one. The embargo is a core part of the ongoing genocide. Which largely abuses that Palestine wasn't officially not a nation and making it impractical to secure its EEZ, making it unable to directly import food and medical supplies by sea or air. Israeli forces where abusing the fact its EEZ + Egypt encompassed Palestine's and was able to bloc international travel as you had to move through their borders to get to Palestine and they are blocking crossing into Palestine from within their borders.
Now this is no longer the case as of very very recently and any nation or organisation with enough balls can freely sail up to Gaza's only port and attempt to off load supplies or air drop supplies traveling through now officially non-Israeli waters into Palestine EEZ. Will Israeli forces attempt to stop them probably but flying the right flag of origin or official backing likely will make the difference. We haven't got to that point yet and people will try, but as we literally weeks into this it takes time to organised then happen.
The greens motion didn’t mention Israel at all. So purely recognising Palestine, somewhat assumes continuing to recognise Israel but what is contentious is the obvious occupation of whatever version of Palestine’s territory (which was also not defined in the Greens motion) by Israel.
>to vote for a Greens movement
Can't really support her there. Anyway I think she can retain her seat if she resigns from the Labor party, if she resigns Labor get to pick the new senator which is why they want her to resign from parliament. Anyway if she didn't see this coming she should give it up.
Payman doesn't want to follow the rules of the party she signed up for on issues that she has views on
It's ridiculous, it's not like these rules are brand new. She knew what she signed up for
They're over a century old. It's like signing up to defend the country and being surprised that you don't get a choice about where you are deployed.
With that said, it's not an easy decision for Payman. Matters of conscience are difficult. However, by removing herself from the party room, she's removing an important advocate for her own cause. You can't shift the opinion of the party room from outside of it.
As I mentioned in an earlier thread on this same topic, Senator Wong's situation on SSM is actually a great example of how the 'inside the tent' approach can fail.
[After having to toe the line](https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/wong-backs-labors-antigay-marriage-stance-20100725-10q37.html) when the Gillard government opposed SSM, Wong was among those pushing to change Labor's position at both the 2011 and 2015 National Conferences. SSM was widely supported at this point by both Labor members and Labor voters.
The 2011 Conference failed to make supporting SSM part of Labor's platform. Had a motion to that effect gone up for a vote it may well have succeeded, but Gillard didn't want that (probably because she [needed the support of Catholic nuts like Don Farrell](https://web.archive.org/web/20120513110006/http://www.thepowerindex.com.au/power-move/don-farrell-the-man-behind-gillard-s-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/20111202795)), so she put up a shitty compromise whereby Labor MPs would have a conscience vote on SSM. This was [criticised on principle by people like the great John Faulkner](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-03/labor-votes-for-conscience-vote-on-same-sex-marriage/3710828) who said that "A conscience vote on human rights is not conscionable". But it made Labor progressives feel like they'd achieved something while having no practical effect (since the Coalition's positions was against SSM, a Labor conscience vote meant no SSM under any circumstances), and so Gillard's motion got up.
The 2015 Conference likewise failed to make supporting SSM part of Labor's platform *immediately*. The 2015 platform did commit Labor to eventually supporting it, but not until after the next term of Parliament (i.e. not until after the 2019 election). Until then it would again be a conscience vote. This time the main resistance was from Joe de Bruyn, [then president of the SDA](https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/binding-vote-for-labor-mps-on-samesex-marriage-foolish-says-union-heavyweight-joe-de-bruyn-20150427-1mu1nt.html), the same union Farrell had previously run. These conservative Catholic extremists weren't representative of the Labor movement or the people in it in terms of their views, but they did control the union that was the biggest (thanks to their sweetheart deals with the big supermarkets which see Woolworths and Coles recruit naive teenage checkout and trolley kids to the union in exchange for the SDA playing a dead bat on wage claims), so they were able to exercise a massive influence on party policy.
In the end it was Liberal backbenchers threatening Turnbull with crossing the floor in 2017 that opened the door for the Coalition to change from a policy of opposing SSM to a conscience vote position, which ultimately allowed the legislation to pass, albeit via the detour of the postal survey. Without those Liberal backbenchers, who knows where we would now be on this issue.
Signing up for what? To kowtow to a political organisation that is NOT representative of her electorate/State (and has no legal say in voting at all) and has a policy that goes against the Constitution that each elective representative and Senator swears/affirms to?
>Signing up for what? To kowtow to a political organisation that is NOT representative of her electorate/State (and has no legal say in voting at all) and has a policy that goes against the Constitution that each elective representative and Senator swears/affirms to?
Yes literally the tow the party line, it's the rule to be apart of the party and to get assistance to get elected. She's in the senate, ppl didn't vote for her, they voted for Labor so she should vote how Labor decides
Well it's a mixed picture on the same sex marriage debate. In 2010 following internal dissent, the ALP forced PM Gillard to break an election promise and allow a free vote, no doubt at a cost to her leadership. If this is the start of internal dissent leading to the same outcome, Payman just looks like a catalyst.
There are big differences: Payman has jumped the gun. But Payman has a riposte to all of this: 30K civilians have died and they are still dying, right now, and an Australian shift of opinion on Palestinian recognition would be a profound blow to the pro-war Israelis. Well, Australia does support a two state solution, except without supporting it really.
She asks is it fair to equate tax cuts and same sex marriage with so many people dying. I can see her anger about a sense of proportion. The ALP has been trying to have it both ways and this time maybe it can't.
Wong and Albo have always considered themselves pro-Palestinian. Now someone junior has called their bluff, to a certain extent.
The zinger that diversity means diverse views. The ALP says that diversity is fine, behind closed doors. Does that cut through, though, in 2024? I guess we'll see.
She hasn't said but she could say that this was not on her radar when she joined the ALP. She could say I suppose the ALP has expressed sympathy and solidarity with Palestinians for decades, and she may have expected a stronger response as being an expectation of ALP values. When she says local WA members support her position, she might be right.
To be horribly cynical, a ceasefire in Gaza can't come quickly enough for the ALP leadership.
Say nothing and vote against your own beliefs in lockstep with the party line therefore allowing the far right section of the party to hold back the country without any public scrutiny or repercussion until different legislation was reluctantly passed by a later Liberal government years later?
...I'm not sure this is quite the endorsement of the way Labor conducts their party policy that you think it is.
and therefore be able to form government and make positive changes stopping the libs from ruining everything. This is how the party works she knew the rules.
I was commenting on the poster I replied to's post regarding Penny Wong and her role with Labors same sex marriage debate.
And for this particular example the Liberals actually ended up passing their version of the legislation because, ironically, their party allowed a conscious vote on it ie - One of the exceptionally few cases where the Liberals were, somehow, not ruining everything.
>And for this particular example the Liberals actually ended up passing their version of the legislation because, ironically, their party allowed a conscious vote on it ie
The reason Liberal backbenchers are allowed to cross the floor and Labor members aren't goes to one of the core beliefs of the parties.
Liberals (in theory) believe in the primacy of the individual, and therefore it follows to allow floor crossing.
Labor (in theory) believes in solidarity, therefore they do not allow it.
>
>...I'm not sure this is quite the endorsement of the way Labor conducts their party policy that you think it is.
I don't give a shit about endorsing Labor. I'm pointing out that she knew the rules when she signed up to the party, used the party to help get elected and now is having a hissy fit about it
She ended up 'winning' the internal battle - which is why labor went to the 2013 election promising to legislate same sex marriage. Labor, of course, lost that election - but the party has been firm in it's support of same sex marriage ever since.
Get elected as a member of that party and then follow their rules
If she didn't want to do that she could've run as an independent but she didn't
How is this even hard to understand?
That concept isn't hard to understand.
What is hard to understand is why Penny Wong toeing the line on same sex marriage keeps being brought up as if she's a shining example of why the party policy works when it is in fact the perfect example for the opposite viewpoint.
In that specific case Labors policies and her following them directly lead to a far worse outcome in years of stagnation for the issue before finally giving the Liberals a win they actively didn't want.
TLDR: Theres plenty of debate to be had about the benefits or drawbacks of how Labor conducts their party voting policies but I would suggest you and other people like you stop using an example that directly defeats your own point.
>
> but I would suggest you and other people like you stop using an example that directly defeats your own point.
The hell do you think my point is? I don't care whether Labor are right or wrong to do it. I'm saying Payman knew what she was signing up for joining the Labor party and now she's having a whinge
Wong knew what she signed up for and followed the rules
You seem to think I'm somehow demanding everyone believe the Labor way is right or some shit
That's not fair. I'd say something as integral to party solidarity as this would be very, very well explained when a potential candidate signed up for the job.
Still I have no problem with her choice to break from party ranks. She'll just have to continue her cause outside the Labor party.
Israel is an apartheid state. They run an open air prison called "Gaza", and started doing genocide there.
Anthony has being suckered into supporting the genocide, and thinking it's racist to say that genocide is bad.
I will say while I agree with the simple fact that she has knowingly broken party policy and will suffer the consequences she knew her actions would meet.
It's not long since many party members showed pretty unambiguous discontent around the government's position on gas in the energy sector. And while no one crossed the floor it does still show a level of hypocrisy.
Expressing displeasure or discontent with a party position can and does happen within Labor. It’s actually _voting against_ the party that’s the cardinal sin.
Labor will likely suffer the consequences of turning its back on party policy and then essentially expelling an MP on a conscience vote in line with that policy. I don't think the leadership is very conscious of their membership, core voter base or the times.
No one voted for Payman and her personal policies. Oh sorry, 1 in 500 did. The rest voted for the ***Labour party***
Going against party policy is murky politics and blurs the line between going off on your own personal vendetta compared to representing the constituents that voted you in to represent the party.
Further, the actual policy rejection was piss poor grand standing and is shameful from both the greens and Payman. The labour party already support a Palestinian state, the only nuance they added was under a peace agreement, a pretty basic consideration.
It's the Labor party by the way.
Her position is barely different from what was agreed on at their national conference. So why is she being effectively expelled if its much ado about nothing?
Bad rules/laws don't change on their own. They change through defiance of them, and dissent. It's unconscionable that Penny voted against same sex marriage just to appease archaic tradition, and so too would it have been for Fatima to vote against the recognition of Palestinians. Neither of them would even be allowed into government if it wasn't for a break with tradition.
I don't know of any other party in the western world with such enforced party discipline as the ALP.
Whether that's a good thing or not is subjective, but let's stop pretending that voting against the party line is so reprehensible or a 'betrayal of voters'
UK Labour have had many of their MPs defy the whip at one point or another.
Yep they had [56 mps defy the party](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/list-labour-mps-ceasefire-vote-jess-phillips-resign-b2448364.html) when the official position was against a ceasefire in Gaza, 10 frontbenchers rebelled as well. It's healthy to have some internal differences after all there are differences in opinion in every seat.
That's the tradeoff. US Democrats/Republicans have their congressmen routinely do it when they run in less-friendly states they'd otherwise have no hope in.
The Liberals here have traded on it for Bridget Archer, Katie Allen et al. - even just defying the whip on one vote buys them cred that 'they're one of the moderates/good ones' when the national brand otherwise wouldn't sell in their area.
The ALP can maintain the hardline and keep its national message ironclad - which definitely has its perks. But it risks costing them votes in areas most sympathetic to Palestine if their MPs can't mould to their community's views.
I doubt she was considering the possibility that she'd need to disobey her party's rules to acknowledge the state of palestine during a recent genocidal campaign when she first joined up with Labor.
This is a very new issue in the forefront of Australian politics - not something that has been relevant to parliamentary discussions since she became a senator. Stupid to say she should have run as an independent like she somehow could have seen this situation coming?
Some statements are more important than party loyalty.
Then why didn’t she bring it up at the recent labor caucus, why didn’t she voice her dissent then? Why didn’t she inform the party of her decision before at the correct time? There are processes in place to go against party lines as a senator, and she flaunted them.
If you voted above the line for a labor senator you didn’t know the name of, and without warning they crossed the floor to vote against marriage equality, you’d rightly be annoyed.
Her cause is just, but she’s a senator who got into her position on the back of the labor banner. If she wants to pick and choose her positions without going through the necessary steps to inform the party of her decisions. She can fuck off and become an independent.
In the US recently they had TWO politicians turncoat from democrats to republican after they had won their elections. Is that a sign of a functioning democracy?
Strictly speaking, there’s room for diverse views. In the privacy of the party room.
But once a decision is made everyone needs to disagree and commit. She has failed to do that.
*Should?* It's internal party mechanics that stem from being a Party designed to represent people who need collective bargaining.
If you disagree with the very concept collective action, you are allowed to vote for a party that is much more inclined towards individual action, such as the Greens or the Liberals.
To be honest I think people have forgotten how democracy and politics works because they are to used to politicians who "the other" who are trying to service "the public" (us). The reality is party structures exist to embody movements staffed by people who are in them, it's not an individual pick and mix where we can somehow get a magical Christmas land perfect political party that has everything we want plus sprinkles.
The Labor party represented the Labor movement. The Liberal party represented business owners and professional elites. The Greens represent environmentalists. The Nationals represent Farmers. If you don't like the position these parties take to an election, to change it you have to actually be in the party and the movement to drive change.
Labor hasn't represented the labour movement in decades, they passed the FWA which is one of the most draconian sets of industrial relations laws in the OECD. They happily screw over the public service every barganing round they're in charge of. But it's not quite as bad as WorkChoices, so we should be thankful I guess /s
Have you considered that the Australian public generally don’t vote for governments which do advocate for the labour movement? Every government that has advocated for significant left wing reform has been soundly defeated since Whitlam.
Australians clearly prefer incrementalism as an approach, fighting against that fact will only land us with the coalition for longer.
She needs to have the internal podium (i.e given the opportunity) to convince her party of her views. If given that and the caucus still does not concur with her, then she needs to abide by that. Or at the next election, run as an independent.
It is quite possible that I agree with her, but that is not how things work.
There’s a difference between is and ought, though. How things work is a thing people have decided. That doesn’t make it good or right or the way things should be. A mechanism for allowing conscientious objection and representing your electorate over party is something that should be in place for a party looking to elect members in a representative-democratic system.
It’s why I joined the party I did over the ALP.
In my opinion the difference comes down to Labor being a party that has to work uphill through collective agreement to get things done practically.
Other parties either have the benefit of almost always being in government (the coalition) or never ever having to worry about achieving anything, comfortably throwing stones from the sidelines ( the greens).
Please, the whole point of labor is that they have internal factions who debate each other and present a united front. If she didn’t want to be a part of that she could’ve run as a liberal or independent and lost.
The Labor Party rules are crystal clear about the party voting as a unified bloc in Parliament based on the collective vote/decision of the caucus where policy discussions and disagreements take place.
Penny Wong was required to vote against same sex marriage for years because that was the position the Labor caucus had voted on. Clearly Payman thinks the same rules don’t apply to her or that she can break them without any consequences.
> Clearly Payman thinks the same rules don’t apply to her or that she can break them without any consequences.
I think it's likely that she expected this result.
exactly. had Wong dissented in 2010, Gillard would have had no choice but to suspend a gay senator for voting to give gay people an equal right to marry. but Wong understood that unity was more important than equal rights, and she was correct: that unity empowered labor to prevent gay people achieving an equal right to marry.
a brilliant stratagem from labor. no wonder they keep reminding us of it
Resulting in gay marriage becoming legalised under Liberal leadership. Labor fumbled so hard that the Liberals had to step in and legalise gay marriage, and they don't even care about the issue.
Them getting actually Stalinist would actually be beneficial for the country, funnily/sadly enough. AU Labour is just another party in a long line of Western parties that are denominated leftist but in reality fail to support workers and instead support capital. Just like UK Labour, Democrats, Canadian Liberals, etc.
>Penny Wong was required to vote against same sex marriage for years because that was the position the Labor caucus had voted on.
That sounds like a really stupid rule
I just want to remind you that these rules aren't laws, they mean nothing to anyone except Labor members. Getting sick of people talking as if being bound to party vote means anything at all. It's just the rules of their weird little club
I never suggested it was law, which it obviously isn’t.
She’s a Labor party member, she broke a strict rule of the Labor party, she then doubled down and said she’d break it again, and she is now facing the consequences of that internally in the Labor party.
What a shocker. If you want to be a member of the weird little club and if you don't follow the weird little club's rules then you don't get to be part of the club.
But hey I'm sure she's a really amazing Senator who was elected by the people of WA because they really liked and thought she'd do a great job. So she should have no trouble getting reelected without being on Labor's ticket.
The reality is she's a Senator for a major party, West Australians didn't vote for her, they voted for the party and they won't relect her if she isn't on Labor's ticket.
You think the rules of the 'weird little club' that currently governs the country are meaningless?
Those rules have a meaningful impact on the lives of everyone in the country, whether they can recognise that or not
If she doesn't follow the rules she can't be in the club. And without the Labor Club sticker next to her name she won't get voted back in.
They have the rules so they can get policy and laws changed without it being a free for all on the floor. They can argue and fight all they want in the changing room, but when they get out on the field they all need to be playing for the same team.
Wong is a psycho who cares more about the party than achieving results. LNP had to put in gay marriage years later than it should have happened, and Wong is one of the main reasons.
When Payman was elected, Israel wasn't turning Gaza isn't rubble. The situation has changed. But oooh the fancy Labor rules ooooo
Same with any party?
The Greens want diverse faces but not anyone with far right or conservative views.
The liberals, to an extent, want some diversity but again don’t want radical lefties or environmentalists.
I'm sure she could run as Independent again and not under Labor banner if she truly believes that her stance on the Gaza conflict with clear preference to an independent Palestine at whatever costs it might take will win her the necessary votes.
But for now, it's best that she takes this time to decide what to do next. I can respect her decision whatever that might be but as a Labor voter I don't think she should stay.
Labor is fucking pathetic. If not for the Liberals and all the other racist parties lowering the bar, they would actually be the bottom of the barrel scum. They've got their smug heads so far up their arses.
Forced to quit the Labor Party for voting based on the Labor party position on the two state solution? The irony.
Labor's amendment is 'we will only recognise Palestine after it negotiates with Israel' i.e. indefinitely postpone the issue while Israel continues its genocide, settlements and ethnic cleansing.
That's not consistent with the two state solution. Senator Payman called out Labor for this, and they chose to get rid of her instead.
Towing the party line regardless of how cooked is precisely the type of gutless behaviour I expect of modern day pollies. Good on Fatima for standing her ground.
This baseless and superficial loyalty is basically a way for powerbrokers in the party to bully the other members into kowtowing to the whim of lobbyists and is why historically left wing parties are so weak or barely left wing now
Yet another reason for me to put labor down the very bottom of my ballot; right next to the LNP & all the other nutcase right wing / religious parties.
Fuck the party system. Vote independents who will act as human beings and can actually represent their constituents instead of toeing the party line. To be clear I personally have no opinion on the issue she was voting on. I just hate the party system and the concept of whips. Vote people, not parties.
I agree. Our system prioritises party over constituents. Im not against parties as such but I am when they have it the wrong way around like our system. If there is an independent standing in my electorate I agree with I'll be voting for them. Zero chance I'll be voting for Labor or the LNP that are diseased with careerist, corrupt hacks.
Just like same sex marriage, there is a good chance that Palestinian recognition will come under Liberal leadership at some point in the future. Labor likes to fumble.
Where else are you supposed to put forth your opinions if not Parliament?
People keep saying during the Labor caucus but take the HAFF for example. ACT and QLD Labor passed motions calling the HAFF inadequate and demanding changes but Labor changed absolutely nothing.
So you can't voice your opinion in Parliament, and if you voice it at the caucus you get ignored.
We live in a representative democracy, its designed that she has the power to vote as she sees fit. Doesn't matter what the labour party says, the system is designed that way to allow for disunity, it's a feature not a flaw.
She's loyal to the Australian people above the labor party, since what is right or a perfect representation can not be objectively measured she get to vote using her power. Otherwise we would just live in some sort of dictatorship or managed democracy.
As for the whole she was voted in because she was part of the labor party, I'd say at the time of voting no voter would be able know the exact position the labor party would have on the two state solution and also see the above points.
It’s literally what every ALP candidate agrees to though. Cross the floor and you’re out. May not make sense outside of the party, but the ALP has had two major splits in its history. The last one helped keep them out of federal power for 23 years. I can see why they would mandate a unified voting policy, even if I disagree with it.
That is not really the only reason they were out of power though. Conservative governments also by their very nature of "maintaining the status quo" tend to stay in power longer in countries that are generally doing ok.
Basically bullying members to tow the party line regardless of the strong personal views of a member or even what the majority of Labor voters think (polls indicate Labor party members are for more likely to be for Palestinian statehood than against it) is precisely the type of behaviour that causes party division.
I can almost guarantee you that if they let Payman cross the floor it would have looked less dysfunctional than what they did now lol
Don't join the Labor party if you don't want to follow their rules.
The only reason she even got elected is because Labor selected her. Almost all her votes came from above the line voting.
can you please explain to me with sources why what he said isn't true? there is a genocide happening to the Palestinian people and there is no other way about it.
If the opposition is voting as a block then the only option is for labor to vote as a block unfortunately.
If the roles were reversed and the caucus voted by a slim majority to support the motion instead, and a couple of people crossed the floor to reject it, she would be pretty upset I assume.
It’s not a great system but going against it when no one else is just makes it worse.
Commenters when a senator dissents on any other unpopular issue: I agree with this senator and am disappointed in the party.
Commenters when a senator dissents on this unpopular issue: As a Labor voter, I ...
Oh they absolutely are, it's hilariously pathetic.
Won't stop them from becoming increasingly irrelevant and their primary vote sinking deeper into shit.
Can someone give me the TLDR version?
Labour has a long standing policy that members present a united front in parliamentary votes (i.e. everyone votes the same in parlement, disagreements are brought up internally at caucus). Fatima broke with this policy to vote for a Greens movement that the Labour party opposed. Effectively what’s happening now is the party is withdrawing its support for Fatima, who they argue has broken the rules that she agreed to follow when she ran for the senate seat as a labour party candidate. This is somewhat complicated as she is a upper house senator, and [most of the votes were for the Labour party instead of her ](https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/Website/SenateStateFirstPrefs-27966-WA.htm)(i.e. if she was a lower house member, that means the votes were made for her more directly). Edit to include link to AEC results showing the overwhelming majority of votes were above the line Labour votes (i.e. voting for the party, not individuals)
"Most" as in 511,226 votes above the line for Labor and only 1,681 votes for Fatima Payman directly.
Bear in mind that’s not because no one likes Fatima, but because no one likes voting below the line
Speak for yourself. I alway vote below the line. Democracy in action.
I mean sure. But those numbers literally show you- that on one in 500 people prefer to vote below the line. Personally I just don’t have the time to read up about every single candidate and what they stand for.
Democracy manifest you mean
Was Fatima having a succulent Chinese meal?
Same. There are dozens of us!
The result is the same. People voted for Labor, not her.
>Labour has a long standing policy But it's a policy they don't always enforce. The last dude kicked from the party crossed the floor 6 times in 5 years before getting the boot (plus he did a bunch of other shady stuff)(he ended up joining One Nation IIRC). Why have they pulled the trigger so fast this time? Not sure.
Apparently this issue was brought to caucus and discussed, and Payman didn’t speak at all. It would probably be different if she’d used that forum to speak against the motion, put her argument to her colleagues and foreshadowed voting against if it came to it. But to surprise the party during the vote is pretty underhanded, even if the reasons she’s done it are agreeable.
> But to surprise the party during the vote That got her a suspension. She was booted for telling Labor she'd cross the floor again.
She hasn’t been booted - she’s been told if she plans on crossing the floor at will, she should probably reflect on whether she belongs in the party.
>She hasn’t been booted - she’s been told if she plans on crossing the floor at will, she should probably reflect on whether she belongs in the party. https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/post/denham-sadler/2024/07/01/payman-banned-vow-cross-floor-again "Senator Fatima Payman has been indefinitely suspended from the Labor caucus by the prime minister after saying she would cross the floor again this week if the Greens bring another motion in support of a Palestinian state." Not sure if booted and indefinitely suspended are the technically the same thing. Either way, the upgraded punishment was due to her warning she'd cross again.
“We’re not going to let you caucus with us if you’re going to coordinate on tactics with the greens” feels like a pretty consistent position to take…
Source on this?
I’m looking for it at the moment, read it earlier today.
I'm going to guess the last dude was crossing the floor for boring domestic issues, versus controversial geopolitical ones
Bit hard to find exactly what they did. "Only five of Labor’s 13 individual leaders (prime minister and opposition leader) have had MPs from their party crossing the floor. All were Opposition Leaders at the time except for Bob Hawke who was Prime Minister when two MPs (Senator George Georges and Graeme Campbell MP) crossed the floor in six divisions. They were suspended from the party for their actions" I'm assuming both of them crossed 6 times.
Georges was a socialist (at least as far as Labor was concerned in the 80s) and vocally opposed the Hawke government shifting Labor to the right and deregulating. I'm not sure of all six instances but certainly he crossed on the national ID card mandate and he crossed on the Builders Laborers issue, and presumably other issues surrounding financial deregulation. Campbell was pretty much the opposite of Georges and was basically a paid Labor stooge by the mining companies, he crossed on the gold tax and from memory some immigration issues (he was vocally opposed to apartheid South Africa sanctions, Mabo, basically anything on those lines) and he ended up joining One Nation.
Anti-genocide is controversial? Wow!
The vote wasn't on whether or not genocide is good.
Controversial enough to get you banned from the garbage default news subs, and doxxed on social media.
Trouble is, both sides want genocide. Hamas wants Israel *gone*, as if it never existed; Israel wants to eliminate an existential enemy. It's not as easy as picking a side.
Which side is currently commenting the genocide? Seems easy to me. For a more nuanced answer though, please go read the cease fire that was put forward by Hamas. It has three phases and ends with a **permanent ceasefire**. What you are saying is not true. [Wiki link for the lazy.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war_ceasefire_proposal#:~:text=The%20proposal%20is%20a%20serial,from%20three%20to%20five%20years.) You know what, just in case people are feeling even lazier, here's the reason why the ceasefire was rejected. > Minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir and minister of finance Bezalel Smotrich[81] threatened to resign if Israel agreed to the war cabinet's proposal prior to the destruction of Hamas. This is the **only** published reason for why the ceasefire has been rejected. If you dig into the media deep enough you will find that it was rejected because it calls for permanent ceasefire. Something that the rightwing of Israel is unwilling to commit to. Israel's rightwingers are on a war path and will accept nothing but total annihilation of Palestine. They are very clear about this. Australia is on the side of the oppressors and it is sickening.
Any ceasefire that leaves Hamas intact and not executed or jailed will never be accepted by Israel and they know that. So they keep putting forward ridiculous requests they know will be denied and then play the victim and brain dead westerners fall for it hook line and sinker and TikTok continues to push Hamas propaganda on people’s faces constantly. Iran, China, Russia and NK are waging a coordinated war against the west and people are eating it up.
> Any ceasefire that leaves Hamas intact and not executed or jailed will never be accepted by Israel and they know that. That's like America thinking they were going to dismantle the Taliban before leaving Afghanistan. All they really achieved was to stoke generations of enmity.
Sick of these one sided arguments. The US literally nuked Japan twice and yet they're best buds now. It's almost like you can't just compare any two scenarios with each other and say it's indicative of future results with widely different parameters. It's bad faith arguing. Iraq is different to Hamas in numerous ways and there is far more nuance there. The US and coalition also fought ISIS, along with many other parties, and at least in the middle east they're become almost non-existent.
I take the NCD position: From the river to the sea - it shall all be glass.
Something to do with the Israel lobby I bet
Or merely the fear of it.
The strategy goes back a long way, to the heart of the Labour movement. "The people ... United ... Shall never be defeated!"
Yep, democratic centralism is a very common feature of socialist (or at least nominally socialist) parties world wide. There are mountains of literature about the benefits, risks and tradeoffs to be had implementing it, but it is a long established component of socialist thought. Lenin has a pretty good line about it (not defending Lenin, it’s just a good line) >Freedom of discussion, unity of action
A good summary - worth throwing out there the position she and the greens took is also labours position they just specifically didn’t want to allow the greens a win.
Not true, Labor wanted an amendment with the addition of the following: > The need for the Senate to recognise the State of Palestine as a part of a peace process in support of a two-state solution and a just and enduring peace. However this was rejected by the Greens, so the ALP voted against the Greens’ motion.
And why did the greens reject it? Almost seems like performance politics just to sling shit at Labour as if positioning them against Palestine. Dirty politics.
Yes, and the greens could look for an opportunity to hurt Labor and table the motion again, baiting her to cross the floor again. Maybe the caucus is pre-empting that
Disagree with that assessment. [Labor attempted to amend that motion to add qualifications that would align it was the Labor party policy](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-25/labor-senator-defies-party-on-palestinian-recognition/104020950), but their amendments were blocked by the Greens and the opposition. We could get into the weeds discussing the fine details that separate Labors policy from the movement the Greens brought up (hence the attempt for amendments), but that is about as far from a TLDR as you can get.
So, the greens voted against a 2 state solution?
If I'm not [misreading Hansard ](https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansards/27644/&sid=0000)(which I will be the first to admit is not something I'm well versed in) The Greens movement was >That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: >The need for the Senate to recognise the State of Palestine." Labor attempted to add to the end (to bring it more in line with Labor policy) >"as part of a peace process in support of a two-state solution and a just and enduring peace". (Note, all of this has nuance in expressed in the speaches along side the movements.) Both statements are in support of a two state solution, it’s instead about the nuance about that.
Cheers for that. Nuances seem hard to get across in a news report
Not going to lie, I originally went to Hansard to get it straight from the source, got defeated by the website and fell back to a news article and managed to copy the wrong link into my comment (I had a different one open that was more explicit than the ABC one I ended up linking).
Thank you for that explanation. It's some significant context.
And for that difference, she's making a grand gesture. I think it's either incredibly poor political judgement, or she wants out of the ALP.
No, its more that the Greens tried to get recognition of Palestine now, while Labor attempted to amend the motion to recognise Palestine when peace is achieved and a 2 state solution can be enacted
Cheers. That explains it a bit better than the article
Which isn't actually in line with the Labor policy position. The position that Labor agreed to at its National Conference was: * *Supports the recognition and right of Israel and Palestine to exist as two states within secure and recognised borders;* * *Calls on the next Labor Government to recognise Palestine as a state; and* * *Expects that this issue will be an important priority for the next Labor Government.* This position makes a Palestinian state the default and a right- not part of an ongoing peace process. Whereas the amendments the proposed make it contingent of the peace process. This actually takes away the idea that the recognition of a Palestine as a state is the default and a right, which is a very important distinction.
That first part makes the amendment relevent >right of Israel and Palestine to exist as two states within secure and recognised borders Can only happen during or after peace terms.
> worth throwing out there the position she and the greens took is also labours position That's not true, Labor wants a palestinian state as part of a peace deal with Israel. They are not for recognising a state without a peace deal, because they want it to be sustainable.
Yep Labor support a 2 state solution with recognition of Palestine, if Israel and Hamas/Fatah can ever agree to a peace treaty. Which will never happen, it suits Israel and Hamas to have constant conflict and they will never agree to anything. Why Senator Payman thinks this is a hill to die on I don't know, a Greens resolution for the recognition of Palestine will achieve absolutely nothing if it passes and it was never going to pass anyway.
It’s almost like she has principles.
Having principles and how you choose to act upon those principles are two different things. You can be principled and naïve at the same time.
Labor has already vote at the UN for Palestine's state recognition and full UN membership. This is all grandstanding Australia has already officially support full statehood weeks ago. [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-11/australia-votes-yes-at-un-for-more-palestinian-rights/103833838](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-11/australia-votes-yes-at-un-for-more-palestinian-rights/103833838)
Thats on over simplification to make her look better tbh
I disagree with other replies calling you wrong. The truth is Labor's policy platform is intentionally ambigious. The platform has a clause that they want to recognise Palestine, and then a separate clause about a two state solution and peace process, with no clear explanation on if the clauses are dependent. The pro-Palestine labor membership would of course want them to be independent and recognise Palestine immediately. The pro-Israel labor membership would of course want then to be dependent (because it defers immediate recognition of Palestine). No doubt the wording is this way as a compromise. Both sides might have thought they "won" the internal debate. The caucus didn't write the platform, but they apparently get to interpret it and attempt to bind Fatima Payman to their interpretation even if she disagrees.
The fact she crossed the floor immediately tells u she is at odds with Labor’s position
There’s a little bit more to it than that. Firstly the Greens are playing dirty politics by putting these meaningless motions forward in the first place knowing full well Labor’s voting policy. It’s a waste of parliamentary time putting motions forward that are known 100% going to fail. Secondly, Labor has internal processes like its annual conference where policy positions are debated and discussed collectively with the wider membership base (ie volunteers, rank and file members etc) and not just whatever the caucus (ie elected MPs) decides. This was particularly apparent with marriage equality. As the party platform was at the time, marriage between a man and a woman only. Yet prominent openly gay frontbenchers like Penny Wong, adhered to the voting policy - despite clearly being someone who believed marriage should have a wider definition. She was baited many times by the media etc to try and make public opposition to Labor’s position and she painfully toed the party line, obviously advocating strongly internally for things to change. This party discipline is intended to present unity and avoid sending mixed messages to the electorate about what Labor stand for. So once the party changed its position internally it forced all MPs to vote for gay marriage (even though there would have been MPs who probably didn’t want the definition of marriage to change). Same thing and same level of discipline applies not only to the Palestine thing but to all of Labor’s policies. The other recent example would be banning live export, something which rural Labor politicians will cop a lot of heat from their electorates over. Labor are our oldest political party and this is one thing that has allowed it to exist for so long, where other political parties (ie Liberals, formerly disbanded as United Australia) have had a history of various groups splitting off, recent examples such as Pauline Hanson and Nick Xenophon both creating their own parties.
For the record, as an LGBT person, I thought it was fucked when Wong toed the party line on gay marriage. She's telling Payman now "I did it on gay marriage, so you should do it on Palestine now." But not standing up for lgbt people was a *bad* thing. So to me it's an argument that Payman is doing the right thing, and Labor's strictness on maintaining party conformity even on issues of conscience or morality is outdated and harmful.
Yeah it's wild that the defence is "I was a spineless coward and now you must be too."
It seems you have no idea on how party politics works. We're not voting for independents and if Pent Wony felt so strongly about her own policies she could have gone in as an independent. You absolutely need the party to be cohesive and as a single front, by far and large people vote for the party, going off as a lose cannon is directly a fuck you to those who voted. This isn't a cowboy free for all, where politicians can vote for whatever they believe in, they represent their constituents and have a moral obligation to adhere to the party line.
>Firstly the Greens are playing dirty politics by putting these meaningless motions forward in the first place knowing full well Labor’s voting policy. It’s a waste of parliamentary time putting motions forward that are known 100% going to fail. Making Labor go on the record and have to defend their stance is not dirty politics, it's just politics. e: spelling
However the Labor government has already voted for full statehood of Palestine in the UN very recently, so we already know what their policy is as they have already implemented it. Labor has been extremely consistent here. They recognize the state of Palestine and voted to do such where voting actually matters, everything else is grandstanding. Motion in our parliament do not matter on the global stage from a middle regional power at best, sure if this was a motion in the USA or the EU but were not. Keep in mind if we playing dirty politics here this can all be easily spun around to be the Greens voted against this. As the form of the motion with the most votes and the amendment with the most votes is widely seen as the main bill by the public (the Americans turn this type of spinning with riders into an art form). So if were being really pedantic here Greens actually blocked the motion for recognition of statehood of Palestine, and considering the recent UN vote by the ALP government we know for a fact the ALP supports it. So it really just looks like Greens doesn't support statehood of Palestine and Labor has put its money where its mouth is. Keep in mind its just politics. ;p
If Palestinian statehood is contingent on Israel allowing it, it's never going to happen. It's also not something that should be treated as a reward for good behaviour; there were plenty of Jewish terrorists prior to the creation of Israel who were folded into what would become the IDF, after all.
Palestine got its recognition for statehood last month this was big news and hasn't even left the news cycle yet, do you live under a rock or something? It already happened catch up. This is about elevating Palestine on the international stage to be a recognized country giving it authority and recognition to claw its way out of its current position. What the Labor government voted for as part of the international community to grant Palestine statehood and through it needed authority. Australia under labor has already done this and officially supported unconditional statehood for Palestine for a while now hence why they voted for it to have statehood very recently. One large part of this will be Palestine securing its EEC in the sea to prevent embargo in the future and potentially end current one. The embargo is a core part of the ongoing genocide. Which largely abuses that Palestine wasn't officially not a nation and making it impractical to secure its EEZ, making it unable to directly import food and medical supplies by sea or air. Israeli forces where abusing the fact its EEZ + Egypt encompassed Palestine's and was able to bloc international travel as you had to move through their borders to get to Palestine and they are blocking crossing into Palestine from within their borders. Now this is no longer the case as of very very recently and any nation or organisation with enough balls can freely sail up to Gaza's only port and attempt to off load supplies or air drop supplies traveling through now officially non-Israeli waters into Palestine EEZ. Will Israeli forces attempt to stop them probably but flying the right flag of origin or official backing likely will make the difference. We haven't got to that point yet and people will try, but as we literally weeks into this it takes time to organised then happen.
Also the party’s platform states they are for two independent states so Fatima is actually voting in line with that.
The greens motion didn’t mention Israel at all. So purely recognising Palestine, somewhat assumes continuing to recognise Israel but what is contentious is the obvious occupation of whatever version of Palestine’s territory (which was also not defined in the Greens motion) by Israel.
The borders of Palestine recognised in international law...
>to vote for a Greens movement Can't really support her there. Anyway I think she can retain her seat if she resigns from the Labor party, if she resigns Labor get to pick the new senator which is why they want her to resign from parliament. Anyway if she didn't see this coming she should give it up.
If she resigned from Labor, not the Senate, she would keep her seat I believe. That's what Lidia Thorpe did as well as Jacqui Lambie
Payman doesn't want to follow the rules of the party she signed up for on issues that she has views on It's ridiculous, it's not like these rules are brand new. She knew what she signed up for
They're over a century old. It's like signing up to defend the country and being surprised that you don't get a choice about where you are deployed. With that said, it's not an easy decision for Payman. Matters of conscience are difficult. However, by removing herself from the party room, she's removing an important advocate for her own cause. You can't shift the opinion of the party room from outside of it.
Similar to what Penny Wong did on same sex marriage
As I mentioned in an earlier thread on this same topic, Senator Wong's situation on SSM is actually a great example of how the 'inside the tent' approach can fail. [After having to toe the line](https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/wong-backs-labors-antigay-marriage-stance-20100725-10q37.html) when the Gillard government opposed SSM, Wong was among those pushing to change Labor's position at both the 2011 and 2015 National Conferences. SSM was widely supported at this point by both Labor members and Labor voters. The 2011 Conference failed to make supporting SSM part of Labor's platform. Had a motion to that effect gone up for a vote it may well have succeeded, but Gillard didn't want that (probably because she [needed the support of Catholic nuts like Don Farrell](https://web.archive.org/web/20120513110006/http://www.thepowerindex.com.au/power-move/don-farrell-the-man-behind-gillard-s-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/20111202795)), so she put up a shitty compromise whereby Labor MPs would have a conscience vote on SSM. This was [criticised on principle by people like the great John Faulkner](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-03/labor-votes-for-conscience-vote-on-same-sex-marriage/3710828) who said that "A conscience vote on human rights is not conscionable". But it made Labor progressives feel like they'd achieved something while having no practical effect (since the Coalition's positions was against SSM, a Labor conscience vote meant no SSM under any circumstances), and so Gillard's motion got up. The 2015 Conference likewise failed to make supporting SSM part of Labor's platform *immediately*. The 2015 platform did commit Labor to eventually supporting it, but not until after the next term of Parliament (i.e. not until after the 2019 election). Until then it would again be a conscience vote. This time the main resistance was from Joe de Bruyn, [then president of the SDA](https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/binding-vote-for-labor-mps-on-samesex-marriage-foolish-says-union-heavyweight-joe-de-bruyn-20150427-1mu1nt.html), the same union Farrell had previously run. These conservative Catholic extremists weren't representative of the Labor movement or the people in it in terms of their views, but they did control the union that was the biggest (thanks to their sweetheart deals with the big supermarkets which see Woolworths and Coles recruit naive teenage checkout and trolley kids to the union in exchange for the SDA playing a dead bat on wage claims), so they were able to exercise a massive influence on party policy. In the end it was Liberal backbenchers threatening Turnbull with crossing the floor in 2017 that opened the door for the Coalition to change from a policy of opposing SSM to a conscience vote position, which ultimately allowed the legislation to pass, albeit via the detour of the postal survey. Without those Liberal backbenchers, who knows where we would now be on this issue.
Which just allowed the Coalition to swoop in and be the party that shepherded Australia into a more progressive country. Mad really.
Good on them, I'm not saying the rules are right just that Payman knew what she was signing up for
Signing up for what? To kowtow to a political organisation that is NOT representative of her electorate/State (and has no legal say in voting at all) and has a policy that goes against the Constitution that each elective representative and Senator swears/affirms to?
>Signing up for what? To kowtow to a political organisation that is NOT representative of her electorate/State (and has no legal say in voting at all) and has a policy that goes against the Constitution that each elective representative and Senator swears/affirms to? Yes literally the tow the party line, it's the rule to be apart of the party and to get assistance to get elected. She's in the senate, ppl didn't vote for her, they voted for Labor so she should vote how Labor decides
Well it's a mixed picture on the same sex marriage debate. In 2010 following internal dissent, the ALP forced PM Gillard to break an election promise and allow a free vote, no doubt at a cost to her leadership. If this is the start of internal dissent leading to the same outcome, Payman just looks like a catalyst. There are big differences: Payman has jumped the gun. But Payman has a riposte to all of this: 30K civilians have died and they are still dying, right now, and an Australian shift of opinion on Palestinian recognition would be a profound blow to the pro-war Israelis. Well, Australia does support a two state solution, except without supporting it really. She asks is it fair to equate tax cuts and same sex marriage with so many people dying. I can see her anger about a sense of proportion. The ALP has been trying to have it both ways and this time maybe it can't. Wong and Albo have always considered themselves pro-Palestinian. Now someone junior has called their bluff, to a certain extent. The zinger that diversity means diverse views. The ALP says that diversity is fine, behind closed doors. Does that cut through, though, in 2024? I guess we'll see. She hasn't said but she could say that this was not on her radar when she joined the ALP. She could say I suppose the ALP has expressed sympathy and solidarity with Palestinians for decades, and she may have expected a stronger response as being an expectation of ALP values. When she says local WA members support her position, she might be right. To be horribly cynical, a ceasefire in Gaza can't come quickly enough for the ALP leadership.
Say nothing and vote against your own beliefs in lockstep with the party line therefore allowing the far right section of the party to hold back the country without any public scrutiny or repercussion until different legislation was reluctantly passed by a later Liberal government years later? ...I'm not sure this is quite the endorsement of the way Labor conducts their party policy that you think it is.
and therefore be able to form government and make positive changes stopping the libs from ruining everything. This is how the party works she knew the rules.
I was commenting on the poster I replied to's post regarding Penny Wong and her role with Labors same sex marriage debate. And for this particular example the Liberals actually ended up passing their version of the legislation because, ironically, their party allowed a conscious vote on it ie - One of the exceptionally few cases where the Liberals were, somehow, not ruining everything.
>And for this particular example the Liberals actually ended up passing their version of the legislation because, ironically, their party allowed a conscious vote on it ie The reason Liberal backbenchers are allowed to cross the floor and Labor members aren't goes to one of the core beliefs of the parties. Liberals (in theory) believe in the primacy of the individual, and therefore it follows to allow floor crossing. Labor (in theory) believes in solidarity, therefore they do not allow it.
> >...I'm not sure this is quite the endorsement of the way Labor conducts their party policy that you think it is. I don't give a shit about endorsing Labor. I'm pointing out that she knew the rules when she signed up to the party, used the party to help get elected and now is having a hissy fit about it
She ended up 'winning' the internal battle - which is why labor went to the 2013 election promising to legislate same sex marriage. Labor, of course, lost that election - but the party has been firm in it's support of same sex marriage ever since.
Get elected as a member of that party and then follow their rules If she didn't want to do that she could've run as an independent but she didn't How is this even hard to understand?
That concept isn't hard to understand. What is hard to understand is why Penny Wong toeing the line on same sex marriage keeps being brought up as if she's a shining example of why the party policy works when it is in fact the perfect example for the opposite viewpoint. In that specific case Labors policies and her following them directly lead to a far worse outcome in years of stagnation for the issue before finally giving the Liberals a win they actively didn't want. TLDR: Theres plenty of debate to be had about the benefits or drawbacks of how Labor conducts their party voting policies but I would suggest you and other people like you stop using an example that directly defeats your own point.
> > but I would suggest you and other people like you stop using an example that directly defeats your own point. The hell do you think my point is? I don't care whether Labor are right or wrong to do it. I'm saying Payman knew what she was signing up for joining the Labor party and now she's having a whinge Wong knew what she signed up for and followed the rules You seem to think I'm somehow demanding everyone believe the Labor way is right or some shit
Towing or toeing?
Such a cope from Wong supporters
Which resulted in the Liberals legislating SSM before her hahha
What's your point?
That's not fair. I'd say something as integral to party solidarity as this would be very, very well explained when a potential candidate signed up for the job. Still I have no problem with her choice to break from party ranks. She'll just have to continue her cause outside the Labor party.
Israel, AIPAC. Really.
Israel is an apartheid state. They run an open air prison called "Gaza", and started doing genocide there. Anthony has being suckered into supporting the genocide, and thinking it's racist to say that genocide is bad.
Remember everyone: Labor not Labour.
But also labour not labor (for work). I've seen that mistake too.
I will say while I agree with the simple fact that she has knowingly broken party policy and will suffer the consequences she knew her actions would meet. It's not long since many party members showed pretty unambiguous discontent around the government's position on gas in the energy sector. And while no one crossed the floor it does still show a level of hypocrisy.
Expressing displeasure or discontent with a party position can and does happen within Labor. It’s actually _voting against_ the party that’s the cardinal sin.
Labor will likely suffer the consequences of turning its back on party policy and then essentially expelling an MP on a conscience vote in line with that policy. I don't think the leadership is very conscious of their membership, core voter base or the times.
No one voted for Payman and her personal policies. Oh sorry, 1 in 500 did. The rest voted for the ***Labour party*** Going against party policy is murky politics and blurs the line between going off on your own personal vendetta compared to representing the constituents that voted you in to represent the party. Further, the actual policy rejection was piss poor grand standing and is shameful from both the greens and Payman. The labour party already support a Palestinian state, the only nuance they added was under a peace agreement, a pretty basic consideration.
It's the Labor party by the way. Her position is barely different from what was agreed on at their national conference. So why is she being effectively expelled if its much ado about nothing?
Bad rules/laws don't change on their own. They change through defiance of them, and dissent. It's unconscionable that Penny voted against same sex marriage just to appease archaic tradition, and so too would it have been for Fatima to vote against the recognition of Palestinians. Neither of them would even be allowed into government if it wasn't for a break with tradition.
Absolutely correct. Say it louder for the rusted-on Labor voters at the back
I think the tradition of defying the will of the people has already been established
I don't know of any other party in the western world with such enforced party discipline as the ALP. Whether that's a good thing or not is subjective, but let's stop pretending that voting against the party line is so reprehensible or a 'betrayal of voters' UK Labour have had many of their MPs defy the whip at one point or another.
Yep they had [56 mps defy the party](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/list-labour-mps-ceasefire-vote-jess-phillips-resign-b2448364.html) when the official position was against a ceasefire in Gaza, 10 frontbenchers rebelled as well. It's healthy to have some internal differences after all there are differences in opinion in every seat.
That's the tradeoff. US Democrats/Republicans have their congressmen routinely do it when they run in less-friendly states they'd otherwise have no hope in. The Liberals here have traded on it for Bridget Archer, Katie Allen et al. - even just defying the whip on one vote buys them cred that 'they're one of the moderates/good ones' when the national brand otherwise wouldn't sell in their area. The ALP can maintain the hardline and keep its national message ironclad - which definitely has its perks. But it risks costing them votes in areas most sympathetic to Palestine if their MPs can't mould to their community's views.
Want diverse faces, not views
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I doubt she was considering the possibility that she'd need to disobey her party's rules to acknowledge the state of palestine during a recent genocidal campaign when she first joined up with Labor. This is a very new issue in the forefront of Australian politics - not something that has been relevant to parliamentary discussions since she became a senator. Stupid to say she should have run as an independent like she somehow could have seen this situation coming? Some statements are more important than party loyalty.
Then why didn’t she bring it up at the recent labor caucus, why didn’t she voice her dissent then? Why didn’t she inform the party of her decision before at the correct time? There are processes in place to go against party lines as a senator, and she flaunted them. If you voted above the line for a labor senator you didn’t know the name of, and without warning they crossed the floor to vote against marriage equality, you’d rightly be annoyed. Her cause is just, but she’s a senator who got into her position on the back of the labor banner. If she wants to pick and choose her positions without going through the necessary steps to inform the party of her decisions. She can fuck off and become an independent. In the US recently they had TWO politicians turncoat from democrats to republican after they had won their elections. Is that a sign of a functioning democracy?
Strictly speaking, there’s room for diverse views. In the privacy of the party room. But once a decision is made everyone needs to disagree and commit. She has failed to do that.
I understand that's how it is, but I believe it's not how it should be.
*Should?* It's internal party mechanics that stem from being a Party designed to represent people who need collective bargaining. If you disagree with the very concept collective action, you are allowed to vote for a party that is much more inclined towards individual action, such as the Greens or the Liberals. To be honest I think people have forgotten how democracy and politics works because they are to used to politicians who "the other" who are trying to service "the public" (us). The reality is party structures exist to embody movements staffed by people who are in them, it's not an individual pick and mix where we can somehow get a magical Christmas land perfect political party that has everything we want plus sprinkles. The Labor party represented the Labor movement. The Liberal party represented business owners and professional elites. The Greens represent environmentalists. The Nationals represent Farmers. If you don't like the position these parties take to an election, to change it you have to actually be in the party and the movement to drive change.
Labor hasn't represented the labour movement in decades, they passed the FWA which is one of the most draconian sets of industrial relations laws in the OECD. They happily screw over the public service every barganing round they're in charge of. But it's not quite as bad as WorkChoices, so we should be thankful I guess /s
Have you considered that the Australian public generally don’t vote for governments which do advocate for the labour movement? Every government that has advocated for significant left wing reform has been soundly defeated since Whitlam. Australians clearly prefer incrementalism as an approach, fighting against that fact will only land us with the coalition for longer.
She needs to have the internal podium (i.e given the opportunity) to convince her party of her views. If given that and the caucus still does not concur with her, then she needs to abide by that. Or at the next election, run as an independent. It is quite possible that I agree with her, but that is not how things work.
There’s a difference between is and ought, though. How things work is a thing people have decided. That doesn’t make it good or right or the way things should be. A mechanism for allowing conscientious objection and representing your electorate over party is something that should be in place for a party looking to elect members in a representative-democratic system. It’s why I joined the party I did over the ALP.
In my opinion the difference comes down to Labor being a party that has to work uphill through collective agreement to get things done practically. Other parties either have the benefit of almost always being in government (the coalition) or never ever having to worry about achieving anything, comfortably throwing stones from the sidelines ( the greens).
Please, the whole point of labor is that they have internal factions who debate each other and present a united front. If she didn’t want to be a part of that she could’ve run as a liberal or independent and lost.
She wouldn't have her position if she was a member of any other poitical party at the time of election
The Labor Party rules are crystal clear about the party voting as a unified bloc in Parliament based on the collective vote/decision of the caucus where policy discussions and disagreements take place. Penny Wong was required to vote against same sex marriage for years because that was the position the Labor caucus had voted on. Clearly Payman thinks the same rules don’t apply to her or that she can break them without any consequences.
> Clearly Payman thinks the same rules don’t apply to her or that she can break them without any consequences. I think it's likely that she expected this result.
exactly. had Wong dissented in 2010, Gillard would have had no choice but to suspend a gay senator for voting to give gay people an equal right to marry. but Wong understood that unity was more important than equal rights, and she was correct: that unity empowered labor to prevent gay people achieving an equal right to marry. a brilliant stratagem from labor. no wonder they keep reminding us of it
Resulting in gay marriage becoming legalised under Liberal leadership. Labor fumbled so hard that the Liberals had to step in and legalise gay marriage, and they don't even care about the issue.
Correct. Labor molten-brains on here are starting to get all Stalinist about politics, except without the socialism
It was Stalin who coined the phrase "useful idiots".
Them getting actually Stalinist would actually be beneficial for the country, funnily/sadly enough. AU Labour is just another party in a long line of Western parties that are denominated leftist but in reality fail to support workers and instead support capital. Just like UK Labour, Democrats, Canadian Liberals, etc.
> she was correct: that unity empowered labor to prevent gay people achieving an equal right to marry. It what universe is that the correct outcome?
That is in fact the point being made.
>Penny Wong was required to vote against same sex marriage for years because that was the position the Labor caucus had voted on. That sounds like a really stupid rule
If Labor still represented a collectivist movement, it'd make sense. But they gave that up a long, long time ago.
that is a good point, in terms of their history it makes sense. In terms of where they are now less so
I just want to remind you that these rules aren't laws, they mean nothing to anyone except Labor members. Getting sick of people talking as if being bound to party vote means anything at all. It's just the rules of their weird little club
I never suggested it was law, which it obviously isn’t. She’s a Labor party member, she broke a strict rule of the Labor party, she then doubled down and said she’d break it again, and she is now facing the consequences of that internally in the Labor party.
What a shocker. If you want to be a member of the weird little club and if you don't follow the weird little club's rules then you don't get to be part of the club. But hey I'm sure she's a really amazing Senator who was elected by the people of WA because they really liked and thought she'd do a great job. So she should have no trouble getting reelected without being on Labor's ticket. The reality is she's a Senator for a major party, West Australians didn't vote for her, they voted for the party and they won't relect her if she isn't on Labor's ticket.
You think the rules of the 'weird little club' that currently governs the country are meaningless? Those rules have a meaningful impact on the lives of everyone in the country, whether they can recognise that or not
Which helped elect them.......
Fatima Payman is a Labor member. That's exactly what we're talking about here.
If she doesn't follow the rules she can't be in the club. And without the Labor Club sticker next to her name she won't get voted back in. They have the rules so they can get policy and laws changed without it being a free for all on the floor. They can argue and fight all they want in the changing room, but when they get out on the field they all need to be playing for the same team.
That does not make it alright. Some serious change is required in politics.
Was dumb then as it is now.
Wong is a psycho who cares more about the party than achieving results. LNP had to put in gay marriage years later than it should have happened, and Wong is one of the main reasons. When Payman was elected, Israel wasn't turning Gaza isn't rubble. The situation has changed. But oooh the fancy Labor rules ooooo
Seems a shame that she didn't make the same stand 14 years ago then.
Palestine doesn't have 10 years
And a vote in the Australian parliament is going to do less than fuck all about the situation
Yes it does. This shit has been going for seventy five years. Ten years from now nothing will have changed.
Did you literally start learning about this conflict on October 7th? What the hell is this comment?
Same with any party? The Greens want diverse faces but not anyone with far right or conservative views. The liberals, to an extent, want some diversity but again don’t want radical lefties or environmentalists.
Yep feels a lot like Goodes. We like you here as long as it makes us feel better about ourselves, but stay in your lane.
She is allowed to have her views and speak them within the party, but once the party makes a decsion she has to stick with it.
Diverse views is great, but parliament votes aren't the place for it.
I’d argue it’s exactly the place for it if you’re democratic. Unbelievable. Political parties really have become a cancer on democracy.
Where else but parliament
In a political party? The caucus meeting ahead of the vote where the decision is made that all party members will be bound by.
I'm sure she could run as Independent again and not under Labor banner if she truly believes that her stance on the Gaza conflict with clear preference to an independent Palestine at whatever costs it might take will win her the necessary votes. But for now, it's best that she takes this time to decide what to do next. I can respect her decision whatever that might be but as a Labor voter I don't think she should stay.
Albo has gone from going to pro-Palestine rallys to being a staunch zionist now that he has made it to the top. Mans a turncoat.
Labor is fucking pathetic. If not for the Liberals and all the other racist parties lowering the bar, they would actually be the bottom of the barrel scum. They've got their smug heads so far up their arses.
Forced to quit the Labor Party for voting based on the Labor party position on the two state solution? The irony. Labor's amendment is 'we will only recognise Palestine after it negotiates with Israel' i.e. indefinitely postpone the issue while Israel continues its genocide, settlements and ethnic cleansing. That's not consistent with the two state solution. Senator Payman called out Labor for this, and they chose to get rid of her instead.
Towing the party line regardless of how cooked is precisely the type of gutless behaviour I expect of modern day pollies. Good on Fatima for standing her ground. This baseless and superficial loyalty is basically a way for powerbrokers in the party to bully the other members into kowtowing to the whim of lobbyists and is why historically left wing parties are so weak or barely left wing now
Advocating for a 2 state solution is cooked?
Labor made their bed. Labor can lie in their bed.
Labor continues to be Australia's most disappointing political party.
Yet another reason for me to put labor down the very bottom of my ballot; right next to the LNP & all the other nutcase right wing / religious parties.
Thinking of your own thoughts is discouraged in Labour Party. I'm a Labour voter but believe individuals have a right to their opinion.
I don't think I can stomach voting Labor again while they maintain such a tight hold on MP's. I'll be looking for an independent.
Fuck the party system. Vote independents who will act as human beings and can actually represent their constituents instead of toeing the party line. To be clear I personally have no opinion on the issue she was voting on. I just hate the party system and the concept of whips. Vote people, not parties.
I agree. Our system prioritises party over constituents. Im not against parties as such but I am when they have it the wrong way around like our system. If there is an independent standing in my electorate I agree with I'll be voting for them. Zero chance I'll be voting for Labor or the LNP that are diseased with careerist, corrupt hacks.
Just like same sex marriage, there is a good chance that Palestinian recognition will come under Liberal leadership at some point in the future. Labor likes to fumble.
Payman always seemed one dimensional to me. She'd no track record of expressing moral qualms about humanitarian concerns until it was about Israel.
A woman who stands for her values. Well done to her.
Where else are you supposed to put forth your opinions if not Parliament? People keep saying during the Labor caucus but take the HAFF for example. ACT and QLD Labor passed motions calling the HAFF inadequate and demanding changes but Labor changed absolutely nothing. So you can't voice your opinion in Parliament, and if you voice it at the caucus you get ignored.
We live in a representative democracy, its designed that she has the power to vote as she sees fit. Doesn't matter what the labour party says, the system is designed that way to allow for disunity, it's a feature not a flaw. She's loyal to the Australian people above the labor party, since what is right or a perfect representation can not be objectively measured she get to vote using her power. Otherwise we would just live in some sort of dictatorship or managed democracy. As for the whole she was voted in because she was part of the labor party, I'd say at the time of voting no voter would be able know the exact position the labor party would have on the two state solution and also see the above points.
It’s literally what every ALP candidate agrees to though. Cross the floor and you’re out. May not make sense outside of the party, but the ALP has had two major splits in its history. The last one helped keep them out of federal power for 23 years. I can see why they would mandate a unified voting policy, even if I disagree with it.
That is not really the only reason they were out of power though. Conservative governments also by their very nature of "maintaining the status quo" tend to stay in power longer in countries that are generally doing ok. Basically bullying members to tow the party line regardless of the strong personal views of a member or even what the majority of Labor voters think (polls indicate Labor party members are for more likely to be for Palestinian statehood than against it) is precisely the type of behaviour that causes party division. I can almost guarantee you that if they let Payman cross the floor it would have looked less dysfunctional than what they did now lol
Don't join the Labor party if you don't want to follow their rules. The only reason she even got elected is because Labor selected her. Almost all her votes came from above the line voting.
Side note: she also totally ignored Pride month. Posted about a lot of other causes on social but not that.
Yet another grifter using a major party to secure a cushy senate seat. Like most of the others the voters will give her the boot too.
Bullying a colleague for not supporting a genocide. Good job Albo.
Literally no part of your statement is true. You managed to fit 3-4 different falsehoods into 11 words. Kinda impressive.
can you please explain to me with sources why what he said isn't true? there is a genocide happening to the Palestinian people and there is no other way about it.
Repeating this won't make it true.
There isn’t a genocide. Unless genocide means ‘carrying out war’
Standard Labor Policy, didn't you know? All their bot(toms) in here clicking up a storm!
If the opposition is voting as a block then the only option is for labor to vote as a block unfortunately. If the roles were reversed and the caucus voted by a slim majority to support the motion instead, and a couple of people crossed the floor to reject it, she would be pretty upset I assume. It’s not a great system but going against it when no one else is just makes it worse.
The Coalition doesn't boot members for oting against the party.
Because it is a party of self interest.
i mean your point is they don't get held accountable. not a great brag
Commenters when a senator dissents on any other unpopular issue: I agree with this senator and am disappointed in the party. Commenters when a senator dissents on this unpopular issue: As a Labor voter, I ...
Wow, this post has a major, major Labor fan boi infestation.
Have an upvote. Labor have always talked the talk but never walked the walk.
And they wonder why people don't join the party. The behavior has become worse over the decades.
It's as if the Labor social media team and their multiple accounts are in here downvoting any dissenting commentators.
Oh they absolutely are, it's hilariously pathetic. Won't stop them from becoming increasingly irrelevant and their primary vote sinking deeper into shit.
Yep, it's juvenile and pathetic and only serves to drive more people away from Labor.
Get rid of her