Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles says WA Labor senator Fatima Payman will not be expelled from the Labor Party for crossing the floor in parliament yesterday.
Senator Payman crossed the floor to back a motion from the Greens calling for Palestinian statehood, breaking protocol against voting against party lines.
Labor senator Fatima Payman has become the party’s first member to cross the floor in decades after she voted with the Greens to recognise Palestinian statehood in a vote on Tuesday.
The federal government moved quickly to quell expectations the WA senator would be expelled from Labor, despite the fact MPs have previously been thrown out for not toeing the party line. Payman, a first-term senator, said she was proud she had upheld her convictions, although she was bitterly disappointed her Labor colleagues had not joined her.