Fatima Payman and the incoming pivot of the ALP
On 25 June, the Greens in the Senate moved a motion to recognise Palestine. The ALP and Coalition successfully prevented discussion of such a motion in the lower house, but were unable to prevent discussion of this motion in the upper house. The Coalition responded by proposing various amendments — conditions Palestinians would have to satisfy to warrant recognition of a state. Their drift to the rejectionist right aligns them closer with the Israeli mainstream, which is worth noting for future reference.
More interesting was the position of the ALP. The current platform of the national ALP is for the Australian Government to recognise Palestine as a state. This is an ‘important priority’.
This position was first adopted in 2021, though Penny Wong said the government would not be bound by it. Pro-Israel lobbyists and pro-Israel politicians — including Josh Burns MP — expressed satisfaction that no further amendments to the platform were added in 2023.
Given it is called for in the National Platform, the Greens motion seemed a minimal offer of support for Palestinian rights the ALP could align with. Yet the ALP has repeatedly made clear it is unwilling to take any steps critical of Israel, and offer more than token hesitation about embracing Israeli oppression and atrocities.
The ALP did not want to adopt the motion by the Greens. But — for reasons to be discussed shortly — it did not want to be seen as opposing this motion. So it proposed its own. Quote from the Guardian
Currently, the motion calls for the Senate to “recognise the state of Palestine”.
Wong will seek to add the words “as part of a peace process with support for the two-state solution and a just and enduring peace”.
There is no peace process — and even if there were, that supposed process started in 1993: it is not delivering peace any time soon. Calling for recognising Palestine ‘as part of a peace process’ that does not exist, is calling for no action, indefinitely. Calling for it in line with a two state solution — when the Israeli government is explicitly opposed to such a solution — does not even warrant ridicule. Suffice to say, the ALP added wording with conditions that make clear it will not and does not intend to recognise Palestine.
Senator Fatima Payman responded to this by crossing the floor to vote with the Greens and a few cross benchers like Senator Lydia Thorpe..
Party discipline is taken very seriously in the ALP. This is manifest in how rarely MPs defy the party. In 2005, Harry Quick MP in opposition defied the party on an anti-terrorism law vote. Though he escaped the incident intact, he was expelled from the party a few years later for not paying ALP fees. In recent decades — for almost 50 years — floor crossings have been very rare, as per the table below. The left numbers column below refers to individual MPs who crossed the floor, the right column to floor crossing divisions. Under Hawke, the two MPs who voted against the party were ‘promptly suspended’ for it.
The reason ALP politicians vote so rarely against the party is because party discipline is so harshly enforced.
And yet, it has not been against Senator Payman. Instead, she has been asked not to attend a few caucus meetings of ALP politicians during the current session of the Commonwealth Senate.
The significance of this is clear. Payman voted against her own party. She defied party discipline, which is deeply important to the ALP, as proven by its own track record. Under normal circumstances, she would have faced harsh sanction from the party. Instead, she was given something like a token slap on the wrist. Why?
It has become clear that the level of outrage at the ALP runs hot across Australia. It does not run uniformly across Australia — a poll in March found that 37 per cent want a permanent Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, 18 per cent supported continued invasion, and 20 per cent supported a temporary ceasefire. That is, much of the public is not particularly well-informed, and only a minority of a little over a third would adopt an understanding that considers Israel is doing something sufficiently wrong that it should immediately be made to stop.
However, in key electorates — such as the much noted swing states of western Sydney — there are large populations with Muslim and Arab backgrounds. Whilst many of these seats are held by Labor, the level of rage runs red hot. For close to 9 months now, Labor state and Cth governments have manifested contempt for Palestinians and their supporters. Remember Penny Wong refusing to comment on Israel cutting off food and water from Gaza? Remember Albanese telling a Palestinian mother to ‘fuck off’? Remember Premier Chris Minns vowing to ‘stop further pro-Palestinian marches in Sydney’? Remember the pleas for the Australian government to let Palestinian refugees into Australia, and the contempt with which their families have been treated? Meanwhile, ECAJ has bragged about engaging ‘almost daily’ with the Foreign Minister and Prime Minister, and AIJAC bragged about numerous concessions wrought from the government.
All this will be remembered. The ALP — almost 9 months later — is noting that the level of fury is intense, and intended to punish them at the next election. So, they are starting to rewrite their own record. Months of silence on Israeli atrocities and a few UN votes have become the Government strongly supporting a ceasefire. Calling for aid to be delivered ‘at scale’, without opposing the blockade on Gaza, has become heartfelt concern for the suffering in Gaza. The ALP is pivoting to a new image of even handedness, and concern for Gaza. In these circumstances, suspending or expelling Senator Payman would do considerable harm to the ALP’s image of reconstructing itself as a friend of Palestine. Thus, the ALP is seeking to rebrand its position, without making any changes to support Palestinian rights. Its desperation is manifest in its failure to impose disciplinary measures against Senator Payman. Whilst the backlash to disciplinary measures would have been significant, this does not and will not undo the ALP’s complicity in genocide, or cool community outrage.
The lack of harsher punishment imposed on Senator Payman may be taken as a victory of the solidarity movement. The ALP is afraid to punish her, because of the level of community outrage at the ALP’s complicity in the genocide. The ALP failing to sanction her may be taken as an omen, portending the ALP pivoting to a new presentation of its shameful record, as it tries to recreate itself as a party sympathetic to Palestine.
