Fatima Payman announces party name, but leaves details hanging

Fatima Payman says her new party will give members a conscience vote and be run for “all Australians”, although she has not yet worked out key policies, chosen any candidates or secured donors.

In announcing the party’s name, Australia’s Voice, Payman gave scant detail on Wednesday when pressed on any specific policy focus, saying the party’s platform would “come with time” and that previous speeches she had made could give hints on what it might look like.

The former Labor senator grabbed the political spotlight earlier this year when she crossed the Senate floor to vote against Labor on a Greens motion about Palestinian recognition. The action was in breach of Labor Party rules, and she subsequently resigned in July to sit on the crossbench as an independent.

On Wednesday, Payman said her party’s candidate selection process would be done “in due course” and would be based on merit and value alignment, but also insisted it would not rule anyone out. She says she has not yet had conversations with potential donors.

Payman refused to put her party on a political spectrum, insisting everyone would be represented, but said it would be more pragmatic than the Greens, catering to “the disenfranchised, the unheard and those yearning for real change.”

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Payman said the party had “broadly” consulted First Nations communities, including about the name Australia’s Voice, which she has announced less than a year after the failed referendum about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to parliament.

“We cannot afford to leave Indigenous affairs and Indigenous issues off the agenda just because there was a failed referendum,” she said, noting the name was part of her discussions with those communities. “We’ve consulted elders from that community who actually feel like the current government is not representing them, and they are being treated as electoral poison.”

Senator Fatima Payman says her new party’s policies will come in due course.Credit: The Sydney Morning Herald

Despite resigning from the Labor Party, Payman said she looked up to “great giants” of Labor, naming Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating as inspirations. “[They] had the courage to stand by their convictions and, you know, push for really progressive reform,” she said.

The independent senator said she had not received any communication or warnings from former Labor colleagues on the launch of her party.

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Payman said her party would “definitely” give members the ability to vote with their conscience.

“Obviously, as a party, we would have value alignment, but at the same time ... even if I disagree with them on [something], it would be important to appreciate that,” she said. “As a person of principle, as somebody who voted on her conscience, we will definitely have a conscience vote, and I will support anyone else’s.”

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