All eyes are on first-term Senator Fatima Payman after she went rogue and accused world leaders of ‘gaslighting’ over the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Ms Payman, whose family fled Afghanistan when she was eight, asked the Prime Minister what the ‘magic number… of international rights laws Israel must break for us to say enough’.
‘They are gaslighting the global community about the rights of self-defence,’ she said, going on to describe the ongoing conflict in Gaza as a ‘genocide’,’ she said.
‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’
She appeared in the Senate on Thursday sporting a pro-Palestine badge, but was nowhere to be seen when the Coalition and Labor teamed up to formally condemn the phrase she used a day earlier.
Coalition senator Simon Birmingham moved a motion which ‘calls on all senators to engage in debates and commentary respectfully, and to refrain from inflammatory and divisive comments, both inside and outside the chamber at all times’.
This was in direct reference to the ‘river to the sea’ phrase Ms Payman used on Wednesday.
She appeared in the Senate on Thursday sporting a pro-Palestine badge
‘We call on the prime minister to take appropriate action and to ensure members of his government, members of his party, do not act in ways and repeat phrases that incite, fuel or are used by those who incite or fuel antisemitism,’ he said.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong agreed the phrase ‘is not consistent’ with the two-state solution, which is what the party officially supports.
‘We want a two-state solution,’ she said. ‘And it is that solution which is needed for peace and security of Palestinians and Israelis alike.’
Labor supported the motion with the Coalition. Ms Payman did not appear for the vote, and the Greens along with Lidia Thorpe voted against the motion.
Ms Payman was present in the chamber earlier on Thursday, and vowed on social media after her controversial statement to keep speaking out in favour of Palestine.
‘I’m wearing this pin of the Aboriginal and Palestinian flags as a sign of my solidarity with the Indigenous people of the land,’ she said in an Instagram post.
‘Please keep raising your voices. I promise to keep raising mine.
‘I will not let you down.’
All eyes are on first-term Senator Fatima Payman after she went rogue and accused world leaders of ‘gaslighting’ over the Israel-Palestine conflict
Ms Payman joined the Labor Party because she felt aligned with the traditional working class values, having watched her parents be taken advantage of as they raised her in Australia.
‘I witnessed the struggles my parents went through to put food on the table, to pay for our education and to provide a roof over our heads,’ she previously told the Senate.
‘From discrimination and abuse to job insecurity and low wages, my father endured those hardships without complaining or seeking compensation.
‘Like many hard working Australians this came as second nature to my parents who just wanted the best future for their four children.’
The crisis in the Middle East has exposed fractures within the Labor Party over the issue.
Israel launched a ground invasion of Gaza after the Palestinian paramilitary group Hamas – designated by Australia as a terrorist organisation – killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages on October 7.
Israel’s retaliatory action in Gaza has killed more than 35,000 people and injured 77,000 others, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Ms Payman, whose family fled Afghanistan when she was eight, asked the Prime Minister what the ‘magic number… of international rights laws Israel must break for us to say enough’
Israel has emphatically rejected the use of the term genocide, saying its war was against Hamas militants in Gaza, not civilians, and precautions were being taken to reduce casualties.
But Ms Payman plainly described the conflict as a genocide on Wednesday, saying: ‘Instead of advocating for justice, I see our leaders performatively gesture defending the oppressor’s right to oppress.’
She went on to say they are ‘gaslighting the global community about the rights of self-defence’.
‘My conscience has been uneasy for far too long and I must call this out for what it is,’ she said. ‘This is a genocide and we need to stop pretending otherwise.
‘The lack of clarity, the moral confusion, the indecisiveness is eating at the heart of this nation. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’
Addressing Mr Albanese directly, she said: ‘I ask our prime minister and our fellow parliamentarians, how many international rights laws must Israel break for us to say enough? What is the magic number?
‘How many mass graves need to be uncovered before we say enough? How many images of bloody limbs of murdered children must we see?’
Her message sent waves through Canberra on Wednesday afternoon, prompting a swift rebuke from both the Prime Minister and the Opposition.
Mr Albanese has criticised the use of the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’, which many Jewish groups say is a call for expulsion of their people from Israel.
Her message sent waves through Canberra on Wednesday afternoon, prompting a swift rebuke from both the Prime Minister and the Opposition
But he noted senator Payman ‘is an adult [and] people take responsibility for the statements that they make’.
‘I certainly have discussed the issue with Fatima, as I’ve discussed it with everyone in our Caucus.’
Just last week Labor sided with Palestine during a UN vote on whether it should become a member of the United Nations.
The move was criticised by the Coalition for ‘rewarding’ Hamas.
Mr Albanese said not a single Caucus member ‘raised issues with the vote that Australia cast’, in spire of public criticism from Jewish Labor backbencher Josh Burns.
Mr Burns said Australia should have abstained from the vote.
Mr Albanese said Labor’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict is clear.
‘Our position has been to oppose the terrorist atrocity that occurred from Hamas on October 7.’ he said.
‘To call for the release of hostages. To express concern at the killing of any innocent life, be it Israeli or Palestinian. To support humanitarian ceasefire. To support humanitarian aid going into Gaza.
‘To support a two state solution, which is the long term position that needs to be reached, Israelis and Palestinians have a right to live in peace and security with prosperity.’
Mr Albanese said Australia continued to urge both sides to pursue a two-state solution in which both Israel and Palestine could co-exist peacefully side-by-side, and argued that any sanctions or divestments would be little more than symbolic.
‘The idea we here in Australia can determine what is happening in the Middle East is just not correct,’ he said.
‘What we can do is to make our voice heard for humanitarian concerns for standing up for the fact that all lives, all innocent lives, matter whether they be Israeli or Palestinian.’
Fatima Payman speaks about journey to Australia in maidan speech
Abdul Wakil Payman came to Australia by boat in 1999 after the family fled to Pakistan, and worked for four years until his family could join him.
Ms Payman, 28, said in her maidern speech her father faced ‘discrimination and abuse to job insecurity and low wages’ but his sacrifice allowed her to live a happy childhood.
‘I stumbled upon my first experience of being made to feel like the ‘other’ at a university tutorial when a young man ridiculed my hijab,’ she said.
‘You see, I never felt different growing up. Perth felt like home from the get-go – because home is where the heart is and my heart was with my family.
‘I didn’t feel different or strange, I felt like any other Aussie kid, growing up in the northern suburbs of Perth, catching public transport to university and hoping to become a productive member of society.
‘But comments like “Go back to where you came from” or inferences to extremism forced me to feel like I didn’t belong.’
Senator Payman as a teenager with her father Abdul, mother, and three younger siblings
Senator Payman as a Year 5 student at the Australian Islamic College in Perth soon after arriving in Australia aged eight
Payman said this was the catalyst for her becoming involved in politics, joining youth leadership groups, police advisory groups, and Muslim student associations.
‘I started volunteering in the hopes of being part of a change, if I was seen to be spreading goodness in society, perhaps then I would be accepted as an equal member of this nation,’ she said.
‘As the daughter of a refugee who came to this land with dreams of a safe and better future, I gave myself that audacity to challenge the system and to see… how much change I could initiate.’
Ms Payman also shared new details of her father’s harrowing 11-day voyage on a rickety boat to Australia to give his family a new life.
‘Anxiety and waves of doubt flooded my mother’s thoughts as she waited and waited, for any news of my father arriving safely in Australia. Four months later we finally received the good news,’ she said.
The family had fled Afghanistan to Pakistan when the Taliban took power, because Senator Payman’s grandfather was a member of parliament under the old regime.
After time in immigration detention, Mr Payman worked gruelling hours as a kitchen hand, taxi driver, and security guard to save up enough money to sponsor his family.
The future senator arrived as an eight-year-old girl with her mother and three younger siblings in 2003.
She was the head girl of the Australian Islamic College in Perth and went to university to become a doctor.
Mr Payman never lived to see her become a senator, dying of leukaemia in 2018 aged 47. But his death spurred his daughter on to run for higher office.