Senator Fatima Payman’s resignation from the Labor Party has ignited debate about the capacity of political parties to represent people of different faiths, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton offering similar opinions on the issue, but expressing them differently.
Mr. Albanese emphasised that Labor was inclusive of all faiths, and that any move towards faith-based politics risked damaging national unity.
“My party has ... people who are Catholic, people who are Uniting Church, people who are Muslim, people who are Jewish—that is the way that we’ve conducted politics in Australia, that’s the way you bring cohesion,” the prime minister told reporters.
“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.”
The prospect of Mr. Albanese leading a minority government in his next term caused Mr. Dutton to similarly reject faith-based politics, saying that such a scenario would be a “disaster” because it would include the “Greens, the Green-Teals ... and Muslim candidates from Western Sydney.”
The latter is a reference to the group, The Muslim Vote, set to run candidates in western Sydney Labor strongholds.
The group has met with Senator Payman, who denies she has any intention of joining it.
But Mr. Dutton’s comments have angered some in the Muslim community, with Australian cricket international Usman Khawaja describing them as “an absolute disgrace” and accusing him of “fuelling Islamophobia” on X.
The opposition leader did not back down saying a Parliament with such a mix of candidates could be bad for the economy.
“If you’re a senator for NSW, your first charge is to look after residents in NSW,” he told the Today Show on July 5, saying a group like The Muslim Vote was more interested in international issues.
Ms. Payman, who breached Labor’s unity rule by crossing the floor on a vote about Palestine, eventually quitting the party to sit on the crossbench, has said it would be wrong to assume her religion was the motivation rather than human rights.
“Religion is something that’s private to me; it determines my moral compass, and it’s a matter for me to hold myself to a higher standard,” she said.
Vulnerable Labor Seats to be Targeted
The Muslim Vote has announced it will target three Labor-held seats at the next election: Watson, Blaxland, and Werriwa. All three are held by high-profile Labor MPs.Tony Burke, has held Watson since 2004 and is Leader of the House, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and Minister for the Arts.
Education Minister Jason Clare has been the MP for Blaxland since 2007. And the MP for Werriwa since 2016 has been the government whip, Anne Stanley.
Watson has a Muslim population of 27.2 percent and is held by Labor with a margin of 15.1 percent; in Blaxland the figures are 35.0 percent and 14.94; and Werriwa has a 17.2 percent Muslim population and a margin of just 5.82.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 29 of the 151 federal electorates have five percent or more people of Islamic faith. Of those, 27 are held by Labor.
Four seats with large Muslim populations are considered marginal: Werriwa; Parramatta; Fowler, which Labor lost to Dai Le at the 2022 election despite fielding Kristina Keneally as its candidate; and the Liberal-held Banks.
The Muslim Vote group has said it may also back lower house candidates in Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, and the ACT—yet these states have much smaller communities.
The group’s emergence comes after comments from Wesam Charkawi, a pro-Palestine activist and researcher at Western Sydney University.
In March he made a speech outside the office of Labor MP Andrew Charlton in Parramatta in which he said, “We’re going to campaign against you. We won’t forget the rivers of blood [in Gaza] you allowed to unfold on your watch ... we’re going to make a change and you’re going to hear our voice.”
