Labor Muslim rat votes against Labor and cops.......nothing.So...

Labor Muslim rat votes against Labor and cops.......nothing.So much for solidarity forever comrades.

Wednesday, 26 June 2024

Muslim.

Protected species.

Labor Senator Fatima Payman avoids expulsion from her party.

It’s official: Fatima Payman, LaborSenator Rat in the Ranks, will get off virtually scot-free, completely without real punishment for committing a sin that has cost dozens of Labor luminaries their careers, livelihoods, reputations and personal support.

Not to mention simultaneously damagingAnthony Albanese’s authority, humiliating Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles,creating deep resentment among her Labor colleagues, handing Greens leader AdamBandt a huge propaganda victory over Labor and extending the life of the socialdivision over Israel and Palestine.

For the deliberate and considered act onTuesday of voting with the Greens against Labor government policy on the MiddleEast, a policy to which the Prime Minister has again fervently committedhimself and his government, Payman has agreed not to attend the one scheduledALP caucus meeting next week.

This slap with the wettest of lettuce leaves from Albanese goes nowhere near the traditional treatment of Labor MPs who voted against the ALP, which ranges from suspension to expulsion as well as lifelong ridicule and excoriation.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton confronts the PM during Question Timeabout the Labor Party’s decision not to expel Senator Fatima Payman.

Given the deep angst among Labor MPswhose offices have been damaged and defaced with anti-Semitic slogans, theirstaff threatened and their work made impossible because of pro-Palestinianprotesters, with whom the Senate motion sympathised, it is probably better thatshe not attend.

On Tuesday night Payman, a Laborsenator from Western Australia for two years, who is a Muslim originally fromAfghanistan, fell for a gross political trick from the Greens and voted for amotion that supported the pro-Palestinian position in contravention of theLabor government’s own stated foreign policy on Israel and Palestine.

Albanese told parliament himself themotion, supported by Penny Wong and all the other Labor senators in an agreedposition, was against ALP policy and was the equivalent of the anti-Israelchant of “From the River to Sea” which is used by pro-Palestinians campaigningfor the destruction of the state of Israel.

It was the same sort of sentimentexpressed by the Greens supporting those protesters who have occupieduniversity campuses and attacked and damaged MPs offices including the officesof Albanese and Melbourne Labor Jewish MP Josh Burns.

It was the same sentiment Albaneserailed against in parliament after it was disclosed he had been unable to usehis office for six months after protesters blockaded his electorate staff andwhich he condemned the Greens for encouraging.

It was not the first time Payman hasbroken ranks but the first spectacular crossing of the floor and running therisk of expulsion under Labor caucus rules and long ALP tradition.

Senator Fatima Payman crosses the floor to support Senator MehreenFaruqi’s motion to have the Senate recognise Palestine as a state at ParliamentHouse in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

It is just not the disloyal vote thathas created what is now a major political problem for Labor but the attempt tosensitively deal with Payman in an atmosphere of angst within the Labor caucusand anti-Semitic and anti-social behaviour.

Early Wednesday morning Marles, themost senior minister of the right and solid centre of the ALP, following thelead of the Prime Minister’s Office, issued a full pardon, regardless ofhistory, without a caucus meeting and absent of logic, declared she “hasexpressed her view on this issue”.

“She obviously has very strong issues.There’s no intention to see any consequences in relation to that certainty …And she’s not about to be expelled,” he said on ABC radio.

Marles justified junking Labor’s rulesof solidarity, throwing the prime minister’s authority under a bus andillogically claiming it was to help social cohesion by saying that since theterror attack on Israel “now’s not a time for them to be going around expellingpeople because they’re expressing a particular opinion”.

While objecting to being interrupted onthe ABC Marles conceded that crossing the floor was “a significant issue” butthat it was also a special issue “in relation to the Middle East is to do so ina way which gives expression to the idea that we want to bring Australianstogether and we don’t see that we do that by starting to expel people becausethey’ve expressed a particular view”.

Labor senator Fatima Payman during Question Time in the Senate. Picture:NewsWire/Martin Ollman

He also argued Payman had said shewanted to continue to represent the people of Western Australia.

The logical consequences of thisexecutive pardon is that Payman has a licence to cross the floor and vote withthe Greens or Coalition if it's a special issue; other Labor senators and MPs,such as Josh Burns in the Lower House, can cross the floor on special issues inrelation to anti-Semitism or Israel; Muslim Ministers Ed Husic and Anne Aly cancross the floor and maybe lose their front bench posts but remain Labor MPs;Albanese, who figured in the mass expulsion of Labor councillors in Leichhardtin 1990s for not voting for his preferred candidate as mayor and being “Rats inthe Ranks”, will no longer expel ALP members for voting against the party; andpeople such as Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who voted with the party lineagainst same-sex marriage, can now freely vote if she thinks it's a specialissue.

Albanese’s history as a factional bullyboy expelling ALP members over trivial votes at local councils stands in starkcontrast to his inability to do more than recuse a most junior Labor senatorfrom one party room meeting for further dividing Labor on one of the greatsocial issues it faces today.

There are some old Labor hands, somewith broken lives, limbs and faces who will not recognise the ALP of today orthe authority of its leader.