WENDELL HUSSEY | Cadet | CONTACT
A senior Labor Party figure has today spoken to The Advocate about a major issue currently besetting the party.
Speaking under the condition of anonymity, the 60-something white Anglo-Saxon career politician explained that he couldn’t be more frustrated with “that Senator from WA.”
This comes after West Australian Labor Senator Fatima Payman was indefinitely suspended from the Labor caucus over her stance on the Middle East conflict.
Payman was suspended yesterday afternoon by the Prime Minister, after going on the ABC’s Insiders program to confirm that she would cross the floor on future votes regarding Palestine’s statehood.
Rather than be expelled from the party entirely, the Prime Minister has sought to minimise the political fall out by by just kicking Payman out of the parliamentary party, for now.
The sensational move to kick the first hijab-wearing Muslim woman in parliament out of the caucus has received the backing of many high-ranking Labor figures, who all look very homogenous.
Unsurprisingly, the majority of the party who come from relatively similar backgrounds have explained that members of Labor need to toe the line when it comes to parliamentary policy.
“We just need to stick together you know, I always had a feeling that this diversity play would come back to bite us,” said the anonymous factional Labor boss.
“These new comers just don’t understand the Labor way,” continued the high ranking figure in a party who received their lowest ever primary vote at the last election and has been struggling to re-stock and hold onto it’s ‘base.’
“We need to be unified on these issues,” said the man who seemingly still thinks he’s a member of a 1970s Labor Party.
Many in parliament have cited the example of the Same-Sex Marriage plebiscite and the length of time it took to get action on the issue, with Payman saying; “We’re talking about 40,000 Palestinians being massacred here. These Palestinians do not have 10 years.“
Payman has for now confirmed that she will continue voting with her conscience on the issue as an elected member of a representative democracy, with the democratic Labor party now likely to bump her all the way down the Senate ticket in 4 years time.
More to come.
