Government ministers deny having any role in suggesting newly independent senator Fatima Payman has questions to answer about her citizenship. The West Australian Senator has also directed strong words towards the Prime Minister as she considers her next steps after resigning from the Labor party.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00We've heard from the Senator herself yesterday making these suggestions or allegations that
00:09she was treated in a less than favourable manner in terms of the response to her crossing
00:16the floor. This morning we have heard from the Prime Minister for the first time at length
00:22about his response to her recent defection from the Labor Party, becoming the first member
00:31to defect from Labor during this term. The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, backed in
00:39his government's response to this saying that the party is open and transparent and hitting
00:45back against some of the suggestions about intimidation or that sort of conduct in the
00:53conversations between him and Senator Payman. Take a listen.
00:57One of the things I find disappointing about Senator Payman is that the decision that she's
01:03taken, she has a right to take that decision, at no stage, no stage did Senator Payman stand
01:11in the caucus and make any comments about the Middle East or about anything else, about
01:18West Australians or about anything else. This follows a report suggesting Senator
01:23Fatima Payman had questions to answer over her citizenship. The suggestion in those reports
01:29in the News Corp papers being that her dual citizenship, dual Australian-Afghan citizenship
01:36meant that she may not be eligible to sit in Parliament. Senator Payman had gone through
01:44the process of trying to renounce her Afghan citizenship before making her way to Parliament
01:51in 2022, but we then have seen a statement from her at that time saying that she sought
01:58legal advice, she was unable to progress with that bid to renounce citizenship in Afghanistan
02:05because the Taliban is in power there, making the case that there's no connection between
02:11the embassy and the government in Afghanistan, meaning there's, as she sees it and as the
02:16legal advice presented to her supports, that there's no case for her to answer on that
02:23question. Then this morning we also heard from the Prime Minister in regards to this
02:29news that the group The Muslim Vote is going to put forward candidates in a number of Western
02:36Sydney seats that are currently safe Labor seats as well. The Prime Minister saying that
02:41he sees no real place for faith-based parties in Australian politics, the concern from him
02:48being that that would potentially create or exacerbate issues with social cohesion.