VIDEO: Senator Fatima Payman has quit the Labor Party to sit as an independent

SUE LINES, SENATE PRESIDENT:  Division required, ring the bells for four minutes 

JAMES PATERSON, LIBERAL SENATOR:  Given the opportunity of a guillotine, they haven’t listed it. 

MEHREEN FARUQI, GREENS SENATOR:  The Greens oppose this amendment. 

JACQUI LAMBIE, JACQUI LAMBIE NETWORK:  You should be absolutely ashamed of yourselves today. 

SUE LINES: I believe the ayes have it. 

LAURA TINGLE, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT:  While tensions in Australia over what is happening in Gaza and Israel have grown these past nine months, the Albanese Government has been at pains to say that it wanted to protect social cohesion.

But on this last day of parliamentary sittings before the long winter break, it was a day of wrath and angst outside and inside the building.

Gaza wasn’t the only point of protest today, but it has gradually come to dominate everything in Parliament House. 

MAX CHANDLER MATHER, GREENS MP:  How is it that Senator Payman had the courage to cross the floor and vote to immediately recognise Palestine but no Labor member in this place has the guts to do that?

JOSH BURNS, LABOR MP:  I desperately want to see the people of Gaza being able to rebuild their lives in dignity and in peace, to be able to move freely, to have freedom of speech. To be able to have a future for their children. 

I desperately want to be able to see my family and my friends in Israel live within safe and secure borders. 

LAURA TINGLE:  The actions of one rooky Labor senator have dominated events in politics this week - stealing all the headlines that were supposed to be about the Government’s July 1 cost-of-living measures and promoting stories of Government division.

But Fatima Payman’s actions have only highlighted a growing wider discord in the parliament. 

PETER DUTTON, OPPOSITION LEADER:  I think what it does demonstrate is that the Prime Minister, if he’s in a minority government in the next term of parliament, it will include the Greens, it’ll include the green teals, it’ll include Muslim candidates from Western Sydney. It will be a disaster. 

LAURA TINGLE:  The division bells calling senators to vote rang repeatedly today, over motions raging from antisemitism to sanctions against Israel. 

In the House of Representatives, the Government was trying to get legislation introduced and debated, but the conflict in the Middle East also made its way there, too.

ANDREW HASTIE, OPPOSITION FRONTBENCHER:  This House reaffirms Israel’s inherent right to self-defence, whether attacked by Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran or any other sponsor of terrorism.

LAURA TINGLE:  While debate on Andrew Hastie’s motion was closed down, there had been a passionate debate in the House yesterday afternoon when the Government moved a motion on Palestine.

TIM WATTS, ASSISTANT FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER:  I move that this House endorses the Government's position to support the recognition of the State of Palestine as part of a peace process and in support of a two-state solution and a just and enduring peace.

LAURA TINGLE:  The wording of the motion was identical to that put forward by Labor last week as an amendment to the Greens motion on which Senator Payman crossed the floor.

In the Senate, the Government’s amendment had been defeated. In the House, it produced a passionate debate.

JULIAN LEESER, LIBERAL MP:  We, on this side of the House, support the idea of a two-state solution - a state of Israel and a state of Palestine living side by side. 

But the question is the timing and the preconditions that need to exist before a Palestinian state should be recognised by Australia. 

ALLEGRA SPENDER, INDEPENDENT MP:  We are not actually achieving anything in terms of the difference it will make to the people in the conflict right now. 

All it does is actually tear our community even further apart.

LAURA TINGLE:  Just as community and political tensions have grown over events in the Middle East so, it seems, have tensions between Australia and Israel. 

It emerged today that the Israeli ambassador had been called in last month to be warned, amid increasing tensions with Hezbollah, that Israel could not count on Australia’s support if it went to war in southern Lebanon.

But for Fatima Payman, the government of which she has been a member since 2022, has simply not moved fast enough and she says, its position is now badly out of line with the community. 

FATIMA PAYMAN, INDEPENDENT SENATOR:  Sadly, I do not believe our principles align with those of the leadership of the Labor Party. With a heavy heart but a clear conscience, I announce my resignation from the Australian Labor Party.

LAURA TINGLE:  The picture Senator Payman painted this afternoon was of a politician who had gradually become disillusioned with the Government’s position on Gaza, but who had not considered crossing the floor to vote with another party until the Greens put forward a motion on recognition of Palestine. 

Senator Payman says she had spoken regularly on the issue until she felt her avenues of influence were exhausted. 

FATIMA PAYMAN:  You cannot acknowledge a two-state solution where one of those two states are not recognised and this needs to happen in order to continue putting pressure on Israel to cease its onslaught and the massacres that it is committing in Gaza and detaining innocent Palestinians in the West Bank. 

LAURA TINGLE:  Senator Payman said that while she had met with a Muslim group in Sydney considering running independent candidates, she was not aligned with them, and talked down any suggestion she may eventually form a political party of her own.

REPORTER: Can you elaborate, Senator, on what the suggestion that you are being guided by God in your decision making and will you campaign on other Islamic/Muslim type of issues?

FATIMA PAYMAN:  I don't know how to respond to that question without feeling offended or insulted that just because I am a visibly Muslim woman, that I only care about Muslim issues. 

This topic on Palestinian recognition, but Palestinian liberation is a matter that has impacted everyone with a conscience. It is a matter that is not just a Jewish versus Muslim issue. This is a matter about humanity. 

LAURA TINGLE:  Senator Payman did not say whether she would be voting from the crossbench on Labor lines on issues other than Palestine, and, notably, specifically identified other issues on which she sounds more aligned to the Greens than the Government. 

FATIMA PAYMAN:  From incarceration rates of Indigenous people to locking up kids as young as 10 years old. From the rising cost-of-living pressures to families living in cars and tents due to the housing crisis. From a struggling to put food on the table and pay the bills, to the climate crisis.

LAURA TINGLE:  The Government goes into the winter break with everyone but the Government controlling the agenda. It looks damaged.

The Prime Minister will use the winter break for a reset with what still seems likely to be a limited frontbench reshuffle.

But it feels like the Middle East conflict has snapped something in federal politics which it may prove difficult to repair. 

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER:  I think it’s really important that we do everything we can to take the temperature down here. 

It’s not about denying anyone their right to have their say, people should have their say, but that can be done in a respectful way, which contributes to the national debate without doing anything to disrespect other Australians, to put people in danger and to give rise to social disunity.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Katy Gallagher is the Minister for Finance and Women and the Manager of Government Business in the Senate and until 2:00pm this afternoon a Labor colleague of Senator Payman's. 

The West Australian Senator, Fatima Payman, quit this afternoon, saying members of the Government had intimidated her as she considered her future. 

Senator Gallagher, welcome to 7.30.

KATY GALLAGHER, LABOR SENATOR:  Thanks for having me on, Sarah.

SARAH FERGUSON:  When did you last speak to or contact Senator Payman?

KATY GALLAGHER:  I reached out to her this afternoon. I could see that she was a bit upset in the chamber, so I reached out and wanted to make sure she was taking care of herself. 

I have tried to be in contact regularly with her. I can understand this is a really difficult situation. I want to make sure that she felt there was people that she could talk through and talk to.

SARAH FERGUSON:  That sounds different from the circumstances that she is describing. She said she's felt, over past days, she has felt intimidated. Have you or your colleagues intimidated her?

KATY GALLAGHER:  I don't believe so. I know that many people have reached out and I have read her comments about her perceptions of that, but I think there's been a genuine attempt to make sure that if she wanted to talk to people she could. 

In a sense I think the fact that she removed herself really from contact with her colleagues had worried us and so we had been reaching out. 

Now she has a version of events of that that differ from mine but certainly the people I've spoken to, it has been out of genuine care and also wanted to know what decision she was making because I think people wanted to talk to her about whether there are was an opportunity to change her mind.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Do you believe that it's possible that even without intending to, that her Senate colleagues and other colleagues in the party, have in a sense heavied her because that is how she is describing it?

KATY GALLAGHER:  I don't think so. I have seen no evidence of it and certainly, you know, she hasn't been in the chamber for the last couple of days but certainly in the last seven days or last sitting week, and the first couple of days of this week, everyone was sitting with her. 

And people were trying to reach out, but I understand this is a lonely business sometimes, particularly when you're feeling that you want to isolate yourself or you are isolated. 

So, I understand her version may differ from ours but I certainly feel we've done everything we can to make sure she feels supported.

SARAH FERGUSON:  She also described the sympathy that you are saying that she was given as pseudo empathy, not genuine?

KATY GALLAGHER:  Well, I totally don't agree with that. I think we've learnt a lot over the last few years about the need to make sure we are looking after our colleagues. This is a very difficult environment to work in and we want to make sure that the workplace culture is the best it can be. 

So I completely don't agree with that.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Did she reply to any of the messages that you sent to her?

KATY GALLAGHER:  To a couple but not in the last few days.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Now Senator Payman says she has very strong support amongst the rank and file, particularly amongst her community in WA. Should she test that support by quitting the seat and running as an independent at the next election?

KATY GALLAGHER:  My understanding is she probably has about four years as a senator to go on her term. She was elected as a Labor senator and so, I mean, only she can really answer that. She is an elected senator of the Parliament.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Sure, it is her decision, but would it be the right thing to do when she says she is relying on very strong support from the people that sent her to Canberra?

KATY GALLAGHER:  In the Labor Party we rely on all of us working together. That's from the rank-and-file members, right the way through the caucus to implement Labor policies for working people in this country. 

We have actually passed 28 bills this week whilst all this has been going on and we've been focused on passing the budget with all those tax cuts and energy bill relief. That's what people want. 

And so, if it was me, I wouldn't stay in the Parliament. I would feel an obligation to the Labor Party.

SARAH FERGUSON:  So she should, the right thing to do, the correct thing to do is for her is to quit that seat and run?

KATY GALLAGHER:  I think these are individual decisions. I'm not going to tell her what to do. She exercises her decision… 

SARAH FERGUSON:  Clearly you think it's the wrong decision.

KATY GALLAGHER:  From my own moral conscience, if I'm elected as a Labor Party senator, I would find it impossible to sit in the chamber as anything else.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Let's understand a little better about how we got to this point because Senator Payman said that she raised her concerns about the Government's policy towards Gaza and the recognition of a Palestinian state multiple times, including in caucus committees. She goes so far to say that she felt she had exhausted all her attempts to raise her concerns. Is that how it happened?

KATY GALLAGHER:  Well, I certainly know she had been engaging with a number of ministers on this as many of her caucus colleagues have. I mean this is, as everyone in the community understands, nobody wants to see war in the Middle East. Everyone wants the war to end. 

MPs and senators are under enormous pressure, as the community can see. We've had offices firebombed. I mean, we're seeing kind of politics at a level we haven't seen in this country.

SARAH FERGUSON:  This is a very important question because it goes to the decision that she's making now because the case that she has presented is that she had run out of ways of trying to get her voice heard in the party essentially? Is it correct that she raised these concerns in caucus committee? We know she spoke to the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Foreign Minister, but did she raise these issues to the point of exhaustion in caucus committees or via other means in caucus?

KATY GALLAGHER:  Not that I'm aware of. Certainly not in the meetings that I've attended, and I know many of her colleagues have. I mean it's been an issue that has been talked about, as you would expect, in the government for months and month. I'm not aware of her raising it directly or opposing positions that were being put.

SARAH FERGUSON:  So, are you dissatisfied with the way that she then has handled her views? We don't doubt the sincerity. This is not a question about the sincerity of her views but the way she handled the communication of those views to senior members of the party?

KATY GALLAGHER:  I think it's been frustrating. Yeah, I don't think and I'm not going to pretend it isn't frustrating because I think people have been aware of her views, as we have been. 

I guess, all of us in the government have very strong views on this and so she's not on her own on that. We have a lot of discussion about it. I think the way, I think in some sense this has been carefully thought through. That's how it looks to me.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Can you explain what you mean by that?

KATY GALLAGHER:  Well, I think by her own admission she has said that she has spent some time talking to political strategists about what it looks like being an independent senator and that happened before this sitting weeks. 

So I think there has been a fair bit of thought put into her decision here and the way she's rolled that decision out.

SARAH FERGUSON:  But wouldn't you expect that on such an important moral question that someone would take advice from wherever they can get it? Does that actually undermine the case that she's making?

KATY GALLAGHER:  Well, I think it shows that some of those comments where she said that she made her mind up on the floor, when by her own admission she is talking with a political strategist about how to be an independent senator some time before that. That's just a matter of fact.

SARAH FERGUSON:  What does that tell you about what she was actually doing during that period of time?

KATY GALLAGHER:  Well, I think she's carefully thought this through, and people might say that's fine and it probably is other than I think her colleagues deserved the opportunity to talk with her about that some more and support her. 

And when you look at the difference, the actual policy difference, is not very great at all in the sense the argument was over recognising Palestine or recognising Palestine as part of a two-state solution.

SARAH FERGUSON:  I think the argument that she is making is one of urgency. Clearly a number of countries in the world have decided to make that decision, to recognise Palestine ahead of the resolution of the issues over a two-state solution. 

Let me put it that to you of a question, if I may. Is the Government's insistence on a two-state solution as the outcome incompatible with someone who holds the views that Senator Payman holds?

KATY GALLAGHER:  I don't believe so and I think in some of the interviews in the last couple of days she's indicated that she supports the state of Israel and the right of Israel to exist. 

The only way that we're going to get peace in the Middle East is through a two-state solution and I think Senator Payman has accepted that. 

So when we look at the substance, the policy substance and the fact that under Penny Wong's leadership, we have made quite a significant advance in our own position, as a government and as a country in recognising Palestine including votes with the United Nations I think it shows just how seriously we're taking this. 

So yes, I think people wanted the opportunity to talk further with her about that and we weren't able to.

SARAH FERGUSON:  Senator, thank you very much indeed for coming in this evening.

KATY GALLAGHER:  Thank you.