Labor senator Fatima Payman faces expulsion from the party after siding with the Greens in a failed parliamentary push to recognize Palestinian statehood.
The Greens tabled an emergency motion in the Senate on Tuesday to recognize a Palestinian state, after an attempt to table the motion in the House of Representatives last month was blocked by Parliament.
Senator Fatima Payman as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addresses a Labor caucus meeting at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Payman accompanied independent senator David Pocock to sit with the Greens and vote for the motion on Tuesday afternoon, while his Labor colleagues voted against. Labor rules bind caucus members to the party's collective decisions, and MPs who vote against them risk expulsion.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong had on Tuesday proposed changing the motion to read: “The need for the Senate to recognize the state of Palestine as part of a peace process in support of a two-state solution and a just and lasting peace.”
But the Greens rejected the amendment and party leader Adam Bandt accused the government of a “cowardly delay tactic” to fulfill its intention to recognize a Palestinian state.
Payman, who has been outspoken about the conflict, resigned from two parliamentary foreign affairs committees after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reprimanded her for using the controversial phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in beginning of the year
Jewish groups see the slogan “from the river to the sea” as a coded call for the elimination of Israel, while others have insisted that it is simply a call for freedom and equal rights for Palestinians.
Payman has also accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.
In an opinion piece for Al Jazeera last week, Payman called on the Albanian government to recognize a Palestinian state, arguing that the move would help end the months-long bloody conflict in the Gaza Strip.
