WA Senator Fatima Payman launches new political party called Australia’s Voice

Controversial Senator Fatima Payman has launched a new political party to contest the next Federal election across the country but has yet to recruit any candidates or articulate her party’s policies.

The independent WA senator says the party will be called Australia’s Voice and says she wants a fairer and more inclusive Australia.

“The ideological spectrum of whether you sit on the left or right, this is not what we’re talking about here,” she said.

“This is a party for Australians. We’re going to ensure that everyone’s represented, whether it’s the mums and dads who are trying to make ends meet, the young students out there, or whether it’s the grandparents who want to have dignity and respect.

“It’s not going to be an easy task. I appreciate that, but we need to capture everyone’s concerns and make sure that they’ve got a voice here in Canberra.”

The candidate selection... will be based on merit and value alignment.

She said the Greens had commendable passion but many people “think sometimes the Greens go way too far” and it was better to approach issues with pragmatism and a “level of engagement with what’s possible and what can be achieved” — but that she didn’t believe Labor was going far enough.

Senator Payman split from Labor in July over differences in approach to recognising Palestinian statehood, but asked whether candidates would have to have the same position on the Middle East conflict, Senator Payman said it would come down to recruiting people with a “value alignment”.

“The candidate selection will occur in due course, it will be based on merit and value alignment when it comes to selecting those candidates,” she said.

“We are not ruling out anyone.”

She says anyone elected under the Australia’s Voice banner would have a conscience vote, hosing down suggestions she would be dictating the direction of the party.

Senator Payman said people should look to her speeches since becoming independent as an indication of what it would stand for.

These have included opposing negative gearing and capital gains tax, changes to aged care and childcare and helping with the cost of living.

Earlier in the week, Senator Payman said the new party intended to run Senate candidates across the country and contest marginal seats in the lower house.

But on Wednesday she would not say whether she had a target for how many candidates she would like to recruit or how many seats she wanted to run in.

Nor has she had conversations with any donors about funding the new party, or with any other crossbenchers about potentially joining forces.

Senator Payman said she had held “broad” consultations with Indigenous people but it was unclear whether that included asking about using the “Australia’s Voice” name in the wake of last year’s referendum defeat of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

“We’ve consulted with elders from that community who actually feel like the current government is not representing them and they are being treated as electoral poison,” she said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said earlier the Labor rebel should test the support for her actions by recontesting her upper house seat in the next election, three years before her term expires.

She responded by saying her reputation would be on the line with the new party and she looked forward to a “full-body-contact competition” with Labor.