By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
Senator Fatima Payman’s defection from Labor over the Albanese government’s stance on the war in Gaza last week will probably cost the party for some time.
Fatima PaymanCredit: The Sydney Morning Herald
There’s the prospect of pro-Palestinian candidates targeting senior cabinet ministers such as Tony Burke and Jason Clare in their western Sydney seats, and plenty of disgruntlement from the more progressive end of the party’s rank and file.
Meanwhile, in NSW, where Premier Chris Minns has been pretty blunt about his support for Israel, one of the party’s more rebellious members, upper house MP Anthony D’Adam, is set to join Payman at an event on “Palestine and the labour movement”. That “u” in labour is doing a lot of work.
The now crossbench senator will be zooming into the panel at Redfern Town Hall organised by an activist group called Stop the War on Palestine, along with Labor’s D’Adam and union delegate Emma Dall.
D’Adam’s own position on the conflict has brought its share of scrutiny. For example, he was sacked by Minns as a parliamentary secretary for criticising NSW Police’s treatment of pro-Palestinian protesters.
And on Thursday, after Payman announced her split from Labor, D’Adam put out a sympathetic press release, saying that while he didn’t agree with her decision to leave the party, he understood why she felt she had no option.
We can’t imagine many of Payman’s former federal Labor colleagues being so sympathetic.
NEW TEAM
CBD brought word on Thursday that the Australian Republic Movement had elected a few new national convenors at a snap election caused by the departures of its former co-chairs Craig Foster and Nova Peris.
That high-profile duo, picked to replace the ARM’s forever figurehead Peter FitzSimons in 2022, both quit following a falling out over Israel’s war on Hamas. Without a former Socceroo turned telegenic human rights advocate, and an ex-Labor senator who was Australia’s first Indigenous Olympic gold medallist, the ARM is in serious need of star power.
Or at least, someone who will go on Sky News and debate Eric Abetz, the former Liberal senator who is now running the Monarchist League. With the recently concluded elections throwing up few people with much name recognition, CBD heard ABC presenter Adam Spencer was being courted as co-chair, ahead of Tuesday’s all-critical board meeting.
Adam Spencer has reportedly been courted to lead the Australian Republic Movement.Credit: James Brickwood
But on Monday, Spencer told CBD he wouldn’t be nominating for the top job. Aside from new youth convenor Yasmin Poole, who’s been on the ABC’s near-terminal Q&A a couple of times, there’s nobody on the new board with much of a profile, and CBD hears the next chairs are likely to be ARM stalwarts without much name recognition.
That next referendum looks ever more distant.
GREAT NORTHERN
Every few years, the Australian Electoral Commission responds to changing demographics by redrawing the country’s political map and erasing the odd seat.
But only in North Sydney has a proposal to abolish an electorate caused such a full-blown meltdown. Last week, a petition being circulated online and around the community urged locals to resist the AEC and “Save North Sydney”.
“Many of us do not want to be moved into a new electorate, and to be detached from sports facilities, schools, businesses and community groups,” the petition’s creators wrote, seemingly unaware that electoral boundaries impact literally none of those things.
“The AEC’s proposal has not taken into account North Sydney’s strong sense of identity and social cohesion,” it thundered, noting that the electorate was special for being one of the few to vote Yes at last year’s Voice to Parliament referendum.
None of this is relevant to the boffins at the AEC. Nevertheless, the petition was boosted by the seat’s teal independent MP Kylea Tink, whose own short political career could be ended by the brutal arithmetic of the boundary changes.
North Sydney MP Kylea Tink.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Tink’s best shot is to jump to neighbouring Bradfield, a play that is complicated by the fact that wannabe teal MP Nicolette Boele has already started calling herself the “shadow member”.
So who gets to challenge Liberal Paul Fletcher? Last week, Boele held a zoom briefing on the redistribution along with community group Voices for Bradfield. Confusingly, that group’s spokesperson Nick O’Brien gave a pretty opaque answer about which candidate they’d back, effectively saying they’d wait on the AEC’s final decision.
CBD’s position remains that we would like to see the two aspiring candidates duke it out in a primary contest. The more democracy the better, after all.