Australian senator who voted in Gaza protests resigns

Senator Fatima Payman has resigned from Australia’s ruling Labor Party, days after voting against the party in support of a Palestinian statehood motion.

The Labour Party has severe penalties for those who undermine its policy positions, and Ms Payman was “indefinitely suspended” from the party’s parliamentary group after saying she would continue to do so.

“This is an issue I cannot compromise on,” the 29-year-old said on Thursday, adding that she was “very distressed” by the decision.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Ms Payman had thanked him for his leadership and denied claims she had been threatened to resign.

Ms Payman will now join the independent parliamentary group as an independent senator.

The 29-year-old Muslim lawmaker, whose family fled Afghanistan after the country fell to the Taliban in 1996, is Australia’s first and only federal politician to wear a headscarf.

“Unlike my colleagues, I know what it feels like to suffer injustice. My family did not flee a country at war to come here as refugees so that I could remain silent while witnessing atrocities committed against innocent people,” she said at a press conference announcing her resignation.

The Gaza conflict has become a volatile political issue in Australia that all sides are trying to manage carefully.

Officially, the government supports the two-state solution, but it has not backed the move after trying – and failing – to include the condition that any recognition must be “as part of a peace process”.

The Israeli military launched an operation against the Hamas group that controls Gaza in response to an unprecedented Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7 that left some 1,200 people dead and 251 others taken hostage.

More than 37,900 people have died in Gaza since then, including 28 in the past 24 hours, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Ms Payman said that since walking across the Senate floor to vote for Palestinian statehood for the Greens last Tuesday, she had received “tremendous support” from some colleagues and “pressure… to toe the party line” from others. She also reported receiving “death threats and quite confrontational emails” from members of the public.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who ordered the suspension on Sunday, has repeatedly said Ms Payman could rejoin the caucus – where MPs discuss the government’s agenda – if she was willing to participate “as a member of the group”.

But in a statement earlier this week, Ms Payman said she had been “expelled” by the Labour Party – explaining she had been excluded from meetings, group chats and all committees.