Anthony Albanese says West Australian senator Fatima Payman’s decision to appear on ABC’s Insiders and vow to go against Labor’s position on Palestinian statehood was deliberately disruptive.
On Sunday, the 29-year-old first-term senator had her one-week suspension upgraded to an indefinite ban following comments on the current affairs show that she would continue to cross the floor.
Speaking for the first time since a government spokeswoman confirmed the extended suspension, the Prime Minister said Senator Payman’s comments and the timing of them made her continued participation in Labor caucus meetings untenable.
He said her actions were designed to “undermine what is the collective position that the Labor Party has determined” and “disrupted” the launch of Labor’s cost-of-living policies.
“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,” he told ABC Radio.
And instead, you have seamlessly segued into the actions of an individual which is designed to undermine what is the collective position that the Labor Party has determined.
“No individual is bigger than the team and Fatima Payman is welcome to return to participating in the team if she accepts she’s a member of it.”
He also lashed the original motion by the Greens as a “stunt” to put “Senator Payman in a difficult position”.
While Coalition members are able to cross the floor and vote in opposition to the party line, Mr Albanese said ALP rules would not change.
“What we have is a process where people participate, people respect each other and people don’t engage in indulgence, such as the decision last week,” he said.
“Pretending the Senate recognises states is quite frankly untenable.”
Lambie calls on Senate to condemn war memorial vandals
Jacqui Lambie, who is a veteran, has moved motion in the Senate to condemn vandals who desecrated war memorials in Canberra over the weekend with pro-Palestine slogans.
“Do these people really think that this helps their cause? Do they really think these disgusting acts of vandalism will bring about a ceasefire?” Senator Lambie says.
“I don’t think these people have any idea what it’s like to have to go to war and have to fight, to see your mates killed in front of you, or to come home with injuries that mean you will never be the same again.”
Senator Jordon Steele-John said the Greens would not support Senator Lambie’s motion, saying war memorials were “not politically neutral spaces’.
“If we are to believe that the men and women of the ADF gave their lives in wars and conflicts to defend such freedoms, then you have to engage with the reality that protesting, that painting is a form of speech.”
Cost-of-living measures lashed
While government MPs are in full force spruiking Labor’s $23bn stage 3 tax cuts, which came into effect on Monday, the cost-of-living measure has been criticised for not doing enough amid a cost-of-living crisis.
Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie said the policy could have been better distributed to help lower-income Australians and was just a “quick Band-Aid fix”.
“I noticed that the government of the day didn’t listen to us, but people like us didn’t need a tax cut, OK,” she said, appearing on Nine’s Today.
As a backbench MP, Senator Lambie is paid $233,643 a year.
“Paying that forward and making sure those people who are really doing it tough, we could have actually given a lot more of a tax cut,” she said.
“It’s a Band-Aid fix. It’s absolutely rubbish, and in between all that, the power prices have gone up,” she said.
However Northern Territory senator Malarndirri McCarthy said the changes would be “quite significant”.
“We are talking about a large portion of Australian taxpayers receiving this, and I do think we have to wait to see how this flows through,” she said.
“We are very confident it will have a positive impact.”