Australia news LIVE: Fatima Payman defection fallout continues ...

Labor Party figures backgrounding against Senator Fatima Payman, who formally defected from the party yesterday, has angered fellow crossbencher David Pocock.

“Senior Labor figures” quoted in The Australian raised concerns about Senator Payman’s Afghan citizenship after she quit the party and refused to hand the seat back, instead moving to the crossbench.

Senator Payman declared her citizenship before the election and was supported by Labor as a candidate and has declared she made representations to renounce her dual citizenship, but the renouncement couldn’t be formalised because of the Taliban government.

She declared she had received legal advice affirming that she was eligible to contest as a candidate due to the “impossibility” of progressing her application after approaching the embassy.

Fatima Payman, pictured with independent David Pocock, during the vote on the Greens motion to recognise Palestinian statehood last week.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Independent senator David Pocock - who himself had to deal with dual citizenship issues before running - called out the politicking.

“Raising questions about her eligibility under section 44 by people from the same party who took responsibility for ensuring the eligibility of her candidacy and now are too cowardly to put their name to the allegations is such grubby politics,” Pocock said.

“I hope people will see this backgrounding and smear campaign for what it is.”

Constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey said it was unlikely the case would go to the High Court as the 40-day challenge period had expired, and it was up to the Senate to refer it.

“The Labor Party would have some difficulty doing that as they took the view when they endorsed her as a candidate so they would have to reverse that,” Twomey said.

“Basically, it’s extremely unlikely it would go to court.”

But if it did, there was some uncertainty about how the court would rule given uncertainty about the situation in Afghanistan, she said.

While it was legal to run if there was no way to relinquish citizenship, it was “bad luck” if the process was unduly long and Senator Payman’s case could sit somewhere in the middle, the lawyer said, adding she had good grounds to argue.

AAP

Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is poised to be swept to power in Britain in the most compelling fashion, crushing the 14-year-old Conservative government to claim one of its biggest parliamentary majorities in history.

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A fierce voter backlash across the UK will reduce the number of Tory MPs to a record low, with millions seeking fresh leadership after a tumultuous period that included Britain’s departure from the European Union, political infighting and scandal that led to four prime ministers in five years, the pandemic, war in Ukraine and a cost-of-living crisis.

An exit poll by Ipsos UK for Sky News/BBC/ITV News, coinciding with the end of voting at 10pm local time, forecasts Labour will win 410 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. It is an estimated 170-seat majority and a win just shy of the 2001 and 1997 elections, when Tony Blair won 412 and 418 seats respectively.

Read more about the projected victory here, and follow our dedicated live blog, which will continue through the UK night as the votes are counted.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he finds it “disappointing” that newly independent senator Fatima Payman never spoke up in caucus. During a heated press conference, Albanese said Payman would always have been able to speak up in caucus.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during this morning’s press conference.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“[My caucus] have a common position… One of the things I find disappointing about Senator Payman is that at the decision she’s taken, she has a right to take that decision, at no stage, no stage, did Senator Payman stand in the caucus and make any comments about the Middle East,” Albanese said.

“No comments in the time in which Senator Payman has had the privilege of serving in the Senate as a Labor senator.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called on independent senator Fatima Payman to be “upfront” about her plans, as he expresses frustration about her claiming she did not make a choice until yesterday.

Taking a question on the pro-Palestine protesters who climbed on top of Parliament House, Albanese said it achieves nothing and is “completely self-indulgent”, linking it to the protesters outside electorate offices.

“I don’t think [Israeli] Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu is thinking, ‘I wonder what’s happening outside the electoral office … before I make decisions’,” he said.

“It’s just a completely indulgent.”

Pro-Palestine protesters at Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Albanese then shifted to defending the Labor Party’s diversity and inclusiveness.

“We are a party that is inclusive,” Albanese said, naming Jewish Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Muslim Industry Minister Ed Husic as examples.

“I lead the first two members, first and second, sworn in this term on the Qur’an. We have people of diverse backgrounds,” he said.

“We have people of diverse backgrounds. We have a government led in the Senate by someone called Wong and in the House of Representatives by someone called Albanese.

“We are a mainstream, broad-based political organisation and we seek to do that. But part of being part of the team is just that being part of the team.

“[However], when the worst kept secret in Parliament House is that … you start prepping for a Thursday question time press conference, I know that there’ll be people here, they didn’t prep yesterday morning, because it was out there for all to see that it was going to happen and that’s fine but just be upfront about it.”

A war of words has erupted between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and newly independent senator Fatima Payman, as the PM disputes her assertion she chose to leave the Labor Party after he made a statement to question time on Wednesday.

Senator Fatima Payman is now a crossbencher.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Earlier this morning, Payman told ABC Radio National that she did not decide to leave the Labor Party until Thursday, but she says that when Albanese told question time on Wednesday, he expected an announcement in the coming days that accelerated her decision-making.

“It wasn’t until Wednesday during question time when the PM said that, you know, ‘we should be expecting an announcement from Senator Payman about what she plans on doing’. And so that made me realise, Oh, I’m expected to make a decision sooner than later,” she said this morning.

“And that’s when I had to really think through and make the decision and resign yesterday.”

Albanese disputes this, telling a press conference in Queanbeyan:

Senator Payman saying that somehow my comments, which just called out what she had said to people, and you know, I heard a month ago … where this was going to go and if you look at some of the meticulous timing of events, including Senator Payman choosing question time yesterday to make the statement that she did … people can draw their own conclusions. Like I think, you know, I have mine. People will draw their own”

People should be upfront about their actions and should be accountable and responsible.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he does not want Australia to go down the path of faith-based political parties.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Taking questions at a press conference about newly independent senator Fatima Payman, Albanese said Payman was elected because of the Labor Party.

“Fatima Payman received around about 1600 votes in the WA election. The ALP box above the line received 511,000 votes. It’s very clear that Fatima Payman is in the Senate because people in WA wanted to elect a Labor government and that’s why they put it number one in the box above the line,” he said.

Asked about Payman being in talks with a possible new Muslim coalition, Albanese said he does not want Australia to go down the path of faith-based political parties.

I don’t think and don’t want Australia to go down the road of faith based political parties, because what that will do is undermine social cohesion.

My party has in around the cabinet … people who are Catholic people, who are United Church, people who are Muslim, people who are Jewish, that is the way that we’ve conducted politics in Australia.

[It] is not in the interests of smaller minority groups to isolate themselves, which is what a faith based party system would do. I notice well that many people who are refugees in Australia have fled theocracies, have fled regimes that have been based upon so called religion that has resulted in the oppression of people who do not subscribe to what is often extreme forms.”

Premier Chris Minns has warned any NSW Labor MPs considering crossing the floor in support of Palestine will be met with the same fate as Senator Fatima Payman, as he delivers a broadside against his backbenchers.

NSW Premier Chris Minns.Credit: Kate Geraghty

Minns described backbench MLC Anthony D’Adam’s conduct as “ridiculous” after he appeared to support Payman’s decision to quit the party, reposting the West Australian senator’s resignation statement on Instagram with the caption “Free Palestine”.

“How ridiculous. Maybe suffering a little relevance deprivation because [Payman] stole a march on [D’Adam] in his own mind,” Minns said at a press conference on Friday morning.

“I just want to make it clear, if anyone crosses the floor on a motion or a bill in the NSW Parliament, we will have to take exactly the same action.”

Minns said allowing MPs to “run in a million different directions” on substantive policy issues would only lend to “chaos in the state and that’s not going to help anyone”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese held a press conference in Queanbeyan, where he was joined by local member Kirsty McBain and Health Minister Mark Butler.

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