How a Gaza 'stunt' divided Australia's parliament
How a Gaza 'stunt' divided Australia's parliament
A senator says she has been "exiled" for voting against her party to recognise Palestinian statehood.
When Fatima Payman crossed the Senate floor to vote against her government she knew it would come with consequences.
The Australian Labor party has strict penalties for those who undermine its collective positions, and acts of defiance can lead to expulsion - a precedent with a 130-year history.
The last time one of its politicians tested the waters while in power was before Ms Payman was born.
But last Tuesday, the 29-year-old did just that - joining the Green party and independent senators to support a motion on Palestinian statehood.
The Australian Labor party has strict penalties for those who undermine its collective positions, and acts of defiance can lead to expulsion - a precedent with a 130-year history.
This is not unique to Auzzie politics. AFAIK every Westernized nation's parties follow the same rule.
My question is if your nation touts its democracy as the best thing since sliced bread, how do you mesh that with dictatorial leadership forcing politicians to vote along party lines, especially on something like this?
Enforced conformity is about as undemocratic as it gets, yet I don't see any big names standing up against it.
If you aren't voting for one specific person to be your representative, but rather, for the party as a whole, you generally want individual representatives to follow the party line, unless there's some sort of unusual drama that splits opinions long after the last elections.
In countries such as the US and the UK, you usually vote for one person to represent your territory, but in elections such as the European ones, because you're voting for lists of people to represent your country, you're actually voting for a party.
No idea about how Australian democracy works, though.
forcing politicians to vote along party lines
They are not forced to vote along party lines. However, they don't get to stay in the party unless they vote with it. They become Independent.
Some issues, usually moral issues, are "conscience" votes and there is no party line for those.
But what counts as a conscience vote is up to the parties once again. Palestinian genocide? Clearly not a moral issue
The senator is elected to the senate, party affiliation is not a requisite. If a senator is evicted from their party they just become an independent senator.
Note: I'm assuming this is how the Aus Senate works, as it's probably similar to any other western democratic parliament.
When you vote for a party, the individual political stance of each politician within that party probably should not matter. In this case, the senator received a statistically insignificant amount of direct votes, it was the Labor party directly that people voted for.
Is it undemocratic as you claim if she wasn't voted in for her personal stance?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
"By her own actions and statements, Senator Payman has placed herself outside the privilege that comes with participating in the federal parliamentary Labor Party caucus," a government spokesperson said.Prime Minister and Labor leader Anthony Albanese was more concise: “No individual is bigger than the team.”On Monday, Ms Payman responded by saying she had been "exiled" – explaining that she had been removed from caucus meetings, group chats and all committees.The dismissal of the senator, elected in what was billed as Australia’s most diverse parliament to date, has drawn a mixed response and raised questions - mainly, whether it’s practical or fair for politicians to toe the line on issues affecting their communities.
Ms Payman stands out in Australia’s parliament.The first and only hijab-wearing federal politician, she has been described as the embodiment of some of the nation’s most marginalised: a young woman, a migrant, a Muslim.She recounted crossing the Senate floor as "the most difficult decision" of her political career, adding that each step of her short walk had “felt like a mile”.However, the 29-year-old said she was “proud” of what she had done, and “bitterly disappointed” others hadn't followed.
"I walked with my Muslim brothers and sisters who told me they have felt unheard for far too long," she said.The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy the Hamas group which runs Gaza in response to an unprecedented Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.More than 37,900 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 23 over the past 24 hours, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.This has become a volatile political issue in Australia that all sides have sought to carefully manage.As has been the case in countless other countries, there have been protests from both Jewish and Muslim communities, as well as a sharp uptick in Islamophobia and antisemitism.
The senator's move has drawn both praise and criticism.Anne Aly - who became the first Muslim woman to be elected in Australia’s parliament in 2016 - and has been a fierce advocate for an end to the conflict in Gaza, said she disagreed with Ms Payman’s approach.“I choose to do things in a way I think will make a material difference on the ground.
The contrasting approaches represent the changing demands of the Australian public, according to Kos Samaras - one of the nation’s leading pollsters.He says a growing cohort of young, multicultural voters are increasingly aligning themselves with politicians who aren’t afraid to take a stance on causes their constituents are “passionate about”.He also argues that migrant communities are no longer willing to accept political messaging that effectively urges them to “keep their head down”.“Australia has had a terrible history, whether from a societal perspective or political parties - that whenever someone from a diverse background expresses their view, overwhelmingly they’re told to pull their head in.”“That’s a formula that kind of works when a new group of people migrate to a country and want to keep a low profile as they’re establishing a new life – it’s not going to work with those migrant’s kids.
And that’s exactly who we’re talking about.“These are people who have grown up in a country that has often made them feel like outsiders, and they’re no longer prepared to keep silent,” he adds, noting recent polling from his team which found that many young Australian-Muslim women feel they lack a political voice.A refugee whose family fled Afghanistan after it fell to the Taliban in 1996, it’s a sentiment that Ms Payman says guides her politics.“I was not elected as a token representative of diversity,” she said after her temporary suspension last week.“I was elected to serve the people of Western Australia and uphold the values instilled in me by my late father.”Ms Payman says that she believes the government is freezing her out to “intimidate” her into resigning.But Mr Albanese is adamant that his decision is the right one, while emphasising that it is not about Ms Payman’s “policy position” but rather, her decision to “undermine” her party.For the time being at least, the young lawmaker has vowed to “abstain from voting on Senate matters… unless a matter of conscience arises where I'll uphold the true values and principles of the Labor Party.”
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