VIDEO: The Albanese Government is facing internal revolt

LAURA TINGLE, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT:  In France over the weekend, the centrist government and presidency of Emmanuel Macron suffered a body blow.

Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally won about 34 per cent of the vote in the first round of parliamentary elections, putting it in reach of becoming the biggest political force in the French parliament.

The New Popular Front, a left-wing coalition put together after the snap election was announced last month, was projected to win around 29 per cent of the vote.

President Macron’s political movement - which roared into power in 2017 in a landslide which smashed the old French political parties - gained somewhere around 22 per cent of the vote. 

Federal Parliament convened for its final week before the winter break this morning, on a day which started with the swearing in of a new Governor-General.

But it was the crossfire inside Parliament House which was more of a problem for the Prime Minister.

Anthony Albanese’s Government may not be in quite as desperate a situation as that of Emmanuel Macron, but his problem is the same: he now faces pressure from both the right and the left.

The PM has worked hard to present his government as one of the pragmatic centre where compromise is to be applauded in the interests of getting things done.

But the risks of being at the centre are that those on either side paint you as weak and not standing for anything.

In the past week, we have seen the federal Coalition, and the Greens join forces and step up the pincer movement on the government, including obstructing it on a range of issues in the Senate.

PETER DUTTON, OPPOSITION LEADER:  Just as our Prime Minister has been weak, he has also been divisive. 

MAX CHANDLER-MATHER, GREENS MP:  What these numbers are is a generational and class war being raged by the Labor and Liberal party on young people and renters that see the rich get richer, and everyone else’s life get tougher.

LAURA TINGLE:  In addition to delaying legislation, the Greens will embarrass the government this week by introducing legislation to set up an Indigenous Truth and Reconciliation Commission - one of the aims of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

The Government’s legislative agenda is also hampered by a more mundane problem. As well as running out of time, it says it simply lacks a sufficient number of parliamentary draftsmen to draft its bills.

The Government is due to introduce its Future Made in Australia legislation this week but there is a huge backlog of legislation still to go through the parliament with less than 12 months until the election - everything from the food and grocery code of conduct, to family law and election funding reforms.

The Government really would have loved it if we had all been concentrating on the range of measures designed to ease the cost-of-living that come into effect today - from tax cuts to wage rises and energy subsidies.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER:  Today is July 1. It’s a day where we want to talk about tax cuts. We want to talk about our economic support for providing that cost-of-living relief without putting pressure on inflation.

LAURA TINGLE:  But this is where the Government found it itself wedged again - and wedged internally - with the standoff between the PM and the entire Labor Caucus on the one side and one first term Senator on the other. 

Senator Fatima Payman’s vow yesterday that she would once again defy the Caucus and vote in favour of a Greens Senate motion on Palestine has seen her indefinitely suspended from the Caucus at a tense meeting at the Lodge yesterday afternoon.

But it was the Greens, as much as Senator Payman, who were attracting the Prime Minister’s ire this morning, for the way the issue was killing the cost-of-living good news, as well as the more historic issue of breaching Caucus solidarity

ANTHONY ALBANESE:  No individual is bigger than the team and Fatima Payman is welcome to return to participating in the team if she accepts, she is a member of it. 

This stunt from the Greens was designed to put Fatima Payman in a difficult position. It was designed to do that. It wasn’t designed to assist Palestinians in Gaza. 

LAURA TINGLE:  Just what Fatima Payman does next is unclear. She could opt to leave the ALP and sit out her term as an independent. This afternoon she escalated the tensions even further.

FATIMA PAYMAN:  Some members are attempting to intimidate me into resigning from the Senate.

As a result, I will abstain from voting on Senate matters for the remainder of the week, unless a matter of conscience arises. 

LAURA TINGLE:  But the politics isn’t just all about caucus discipline and Senate votes. Senator Payman’s stand poses big political problems for a government which has alienated many Muslim voters since October 7. 

BILAL RAUF, AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL IMAMS COUNCIL:  In politics, there's been a celebration of diversity, whether it's in terms of women or people of different backgrounds. Now, that shouldn't just be skin deep. It shouldn't just be about statistics and numbers. 

It's about taking into account the different perspectives, experiences, and what people have to say and accommodating and reflecting those. 

And if the institutions, if parties are unable to do that, then it really does raise a question about the benefit of any diversity or the claims to diversity, when that diversity needs to be expressed as one solitary perspective or voice.

LAURA TINGLE:  Some of Senator Payman’s supporters argue she has been bullied by the Prime Minister and senior figures in the government. 

MAHMUD HAWILABARRISTER AND COMMUNITY ADVOCATE:  I'm actually disgusted with how the Prime Minister has treated Senator Fatima Payman and first he suspended her temporarily and he realized that wasn't enough. 

He realized he could probably dish out more punishment, while still perhaps securing key voting groups and he decided to indefinitely suspend her. 

LAURA TINGLE:  The perceived treatment of Senator Payman has also only further fuelled disillusion of people with ties to the Middle East who live in southwestern Sydney where talk of the community running independent candidates is heating up 

MAHMUD HAWILA:  Because the Australian Labor Party has failed to represent key voting groups for so long, but particularly in this past nine months, they have organically of their own freewill formed a grassroots movement that is now in full swing in preparation for the next federal election. And they've mobilized to run independents to eject Labor MPs and senators who refuse to represent the people within their electorates.

LAURA TINGLE:  It is not just Muslim voters who are involved in this movement which is said to be targeting Labor MPs in around dozen seats, not just in southwest Sydney, but across the ACT, Victoria and New South Wales 

MAHMUD HAWILA:  Muslims are a key voting group, but Arabs, Palestinians and wider Australia are all united in their view that the Australian Labor Party, which requires senators and MPs to leave their morals at the door, is no longer representative of 21st century Australia. 

LAURA TINGLE:  Mahmud Hawila is a Sydney barrister, law lecturer and community leader who lives in the southwestern Sydney electorate of Blaxland. A former policeman and police prosecutor, he has been touted as one of the people who might emerge as an independent community candidate in the seat once held by former prime minister Paul Keating

MAHMUD HAWILA:  I haven't made a decision. I've got a great practice at the bar. And I enjoy lecturing at university. And so I'm not yet sure whether I want to make the jump.

LAURA TINGLE:  A revolution which has seen so many Coalition MPs replaced by independents may be about to spread to the other side of politics.