You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker every morning to hear the latest episode. Just say play the news from The Australian. From the Australian, Here's what's on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Thursday, June twenty seventh. Buckle in for another rate rise. Inflation has gone up to four percent for the year to May, despite all the government's efforts to keep prices under control. So what's
driving this power bills, petrol prices and rents. You can read our experts analysis on what it means for your household right now at the Australian dot com dot a. Leading Jewish organizations say Sydney University is no longer so for Jewish students and staff. An exclusive story in The Australian Today says they're offering assistance to any Jewish students who want to leave. She's a twenty nine year old
Afghanistan born former pharmacy assistant and she's gone rogue. Senator Fatima Payman has broken ranks with the Labor Party that put her in power, defying Anthony Albanesi to vote with the Greens on Palestinian statehood. Today, our national editor Dennis Shanahan on why this is a serious challenge to Anthony Albanesi's authority. She's the first Labor senator to cross the Senate floor in more than three days. Labor Senator Fatima payment made a daring decision to defy her party and
across the floor. I believe that I have upheld the party ethos and called for what the party's platform as stipulate.
The promnise has been done over by a twenty nine year old woman from Western Australia on his team.
It's as simple as that.
On Tuesday, a huge moment in federal politics about the biggest issue in foreign policy right now, the conflict in Gaza. Labor Senator Fatima Payman crossed the floor and voted against her own party. It was a symbolic move. Payment voted with the Greens on one of their motions, formal recognition of the state of Palestine. The government's position is to support recognition of Palestine only as part of negotiations towards a two state solution that is Israel and Palestine coexisting.
It's not about the policy issue in the Middle East.
Dennis Shanahan is the Australian's National Editor.
This hasn't solved anything about the Middle East. It's a bit like the Hecklers facing Jerry Seinfeld trying to stop Jewish comedians. It was a pointless vote, but as a result Senator Payman has sowned vision within the Labor Party, given a victory to Adam Bandt, and actually made it harder for Labor MPs to oppose the violence and the
protests as well as stand up for Jewish Australians. This is a precedent on an issue which is not a conscience vote and which opens all sorts of possibilities for the Greens to exploit and for Labor MPs to come under increasing pressure in their seats if they don't start to take similar action.
What Dennis is talking about is an ironclad rule of the Australian Labor Party decision made collectively by caucus, that is all the members of Parliament, and everyone towes the party line.
What about Ed Husick in Western Sydney, with a large Moslem population and a Moslem himself, who I have to say has been absolutely straight down the line on this issue. He has not been for promoted any sort of violence or protest. He has appealed for peaceful negotiation while standing up for Islamic Australians. But what we see now is if there's another vote, what does ed Husick do? And people can then point to Senator Payment and say, look ed, look what she did. Why can't you.
Labor has been here before. In the mid nineteen nineties, when Labor was in opposition, one of its senators, Mal Colston, had his eye on a new job in the set in it as vice president. The promotion came with a pay bump of about ten thousand dollars and a few extra benefits Senator Hill.
Madam President I remand the Senate at the time has come when it is necessary for the Senate to choose one of its members to be deputy President and Chairman of Committees.
Colston's own party didn't nominate him for the Senate vice presidency, so the coalition swooped in.
They would support him in the vote if he voted for himself, which he did, and so he voted against the Labor candidate for himself and became Vice President of the Senate.
It was high drama in the Senate, Labor betrayed by one of its own.
The word of.
This government and its officeholders in this place is worth.
Nothing is worth nothing is sy Send it alive.
But Colston's victory was short lived.
He was expelled from the party. He was called the king Rat. He was pilloried in Parliament and elsewhere. He was completely excotiated by the Labor Party. And he was the last one to be expelled for crossing the floor.
The point is Labour's long standing tradition is to expel MPs who break the rules. And guess who's been the most hardline practitioner of that tough standard. Anthony Alberonizi, a longtime party operative from the Left faction, famous for enforcing discipline. Albanizi has a cameo in the classic nineteen ninety six documentary Rats in the Ranks, which is about the most
brutal layer of politics local councils. Incumbent leich Art mayor Larry Hand is battling it out with three rivals from his own Labor Party for the mayoralty in nineteen ninety four. There's duplicity, dirty tricks and backstabbing all around.
I've been thug. I was gonna sit down and have idle hit shut out to his stab men number. It's pretty pathetic, really.
Labour sends head office enforcer, the young Anthony Albanesi to sort things out. He suggests the warring wannabe mayor's pull a name out of a hat.
Oh yes, and Anthony Alberanesi was in that to his arm pits, and he was there and at the end he tried to keep away from the camera because there's a couple of shots. But what we've actually seen is that Anthony Alberanesi has a long history of expelling ALP members for as little as voting against his preferred mayoral candidate in a local light Art council election. And what's more,
he boasted about it. So what we've actually seen is a repudiation of his own long history of taking action against ALP members who vote against the party, against members, and his own authority in calling for a balanced position on Israel and Palestine, his own authority in condemning the Greens, and the challenge he now faces not from a single senator. She is two years in the Senate. She doesn't represent any She got into the Senate with it with one
nine hundred primary votes. She got there on the Labor ticket. She owes the Labor Party for getting into the Senate, for being where she is and being able to do what she can do. So is the question of loyalty to the Labor Party. All that is being undermined by what she's done, coming up the.
High personal price many Labour MPs have paid to follow the party's rules. We'll be back after this break. When she was elected to the Senate in two thousand and one, Penny Wong became Australia's first openly gay cabinet minister. She and her partner, Sophie Aloash are married with two daughters. It was the happiest ending to a long and complicated story. In those early days of Wong's career, Labour's position on same sex marriage was crystal clear. Marriage is between a
man and a woman. Wong spoke about it during an appearance on the ABC's Q and A program in twenty ten. Now I accept that you and some other people in the community would like us to have a different position in terms of marriage. That isn't the position of the party. That year, for a second time, Wong voted against changing Labour's position on same sex marriage. Under Julia Gillard's leadership. The first had been two years earlier when Kevin Rudd
was PM. Wong copped a lot of flak for those votes and for towing the party line despite being an openly gay woman. On that same episode of Q and a legendary Labor headkicker, Graham Richardson leapt to Wong's defense.
I'm amazed somewhat by these questions. Really, you would not have had many of the things that have now happened that she's already referred to if people like Penny weren't in the Labor Party and weren't pushing for him. There are a lot of people in the Labor Party who don't agree.
With this stuff.
At the moment, there's nowhere near a majority, but there will be over time, because people like Penny will work for it and it'll get up in the end. But give her a break, for God's sake, she's part of a carcus.
There's a whole lot of it.
She doesn't run the government, she's a part of it, a part of it. There's a thing called cabinet soladbarity, and if she wants to break it, she gets nowhere, you'll lose someone who fights for your cause. That my friends is dumb.
See Penny Wong was bound by that same century old rule that dictates Labor members don't cross the floor on matters of policy, and so she sacrificed her own personal position to vote with the caucus. That's what Labor expects. There are some exceptions when the party agrees a particular matter can be a conscience vote. That is, each member can decide how to vote according to their own conscience.
The Israel Palestine issue is not like that. Labour's policy is to support Palestinian statehood as part of a two state solution. The Greens want an unequivocal endorsement of Palestine as a state.
Now this motion, this was not a conscience vote. There may be other motions and I wouldn't be surprised to see the Greens moving another motion in the House to try and flush out more people in the Labor Party. Adam Bandt has used Senator Payman's vote immediately saying calling on other Labor MPs to vote against the Labor Party policy on a two party solution in the Middle East. But it's really the social division at home which is
the real problem. Senator payment has voted with the Greens and pro Palestinian sympathizers that the Prime Minister has condemned. He has excoriated them in the Parliament. He has attacked the Greens for giving sympathy to antisemitic thoughts and actions, damaging and attacking, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to MPs, including Labor MPs and Josh Burns in anti Semitic attacks. And so Senator Payment has backed that Hall sentiment of social division here in Australia.
What will be hurting Albanezi the most of the moment. Do you think the fact that he's got a renegade who he can't touch for those optics reasons that you described before, or that the Greens have had a win here?
Oh well, I think it's essentially that the Greens have had a win. But what that represents is a lack of authority from the Prime Minister. Lack of authority is what is damaging Anthony Albinese's leadership. He cannot continue to win if he loses continues to lose authority. He's lost authority over the voice, he lost authority over his denial on changes to tax cuts. He lost authority on this very issue of Palestine and social division and anti Semitism
in Australia. And now we have a senator challenging his authority, joining the Greens the people he's condemned in Parliament that all the other MPs have voted against. And so it is a lack of authority.
Dennis Anahan is The Australian's National editor. Thanks for joining us on the front and don't forget to join our subscribers at the Australian dot com dot au