How Fatima Payman killed Change From Within

Since Labor Senator Fatima Payman crossed the floor last week to vote for Palestinian state recognition, the campaign to force her out of the party has gone into overdrive. She was suspended indefinitely from Labor’s federal caucus on Sunday afternoon, and may be expelled from the party at a caucus meeting on Tuesday.

While anonymous Labor MPs are badmouthing Payman in friendly news outlets, two politicians in particular — Senator for WA Louise Pratt and foreign minister Penny Wong — have been especially vocal in their criticism. Both are LGBTQA+ women who voted and publicly argued against same-sex marriage until federal Labor allowed a conscience vote on the issue in 2011. Since Payman’s vote, both have held up their conduct during that debate as the model of how Labor politicians should push for change when they disagree with party policy.

As it did fifteen years ago, this line of argument has proven irresistible to Press Gallery journalists. From Mohammad Tawhidi, the “fake sheikh” who used to pop up on Sky News warning about the supposed imminent Australian caliphate, to Nelly Yoa, the Sudanese “community leader”-slash-serial fantastist raised to prominence by The Age during Victoria’s confected African gangs crisis in 2018, the thought of a public figure from an ethnic, sexual, cultural or religious minority agitating against their own rights has been catnip to Australia’s media class for a long time.