‘My reputation on the line’: Fatima Payman hits back at PM’s challenge

Fatima Payman is not afraid of taking on Anthony Albanese in his inner-Sydney seat, saying she would relish an “electoral arm wrestle” with the prime minister.

The independent senator, who quit Labor in July over differences in approach to the Israel-Gaza conflict, is set to launch her own party this week.

While her Senate term lasts until 2028, she will look to run candidates across the country for the upper house and in some lower house marginal seats.

Mr Albanese told the AFR on Monday the former Labor senator should “test democratic support for her actions by contesting the next election herself under the banner of her new political party” — in other words, quit Parliament and run again, not on Labor’s ticket.

But Senator Payman said the point of establishing the party was to test the support for her actions.

That meant not just in WA but across the nation.

“My reputation will be on the line,” she said.

“If the PM really wants an electoral arm wrestle, we may even run a candidate in Grayndler.

“This will be a full-body-contact competition and I’m not backing down.”

Unlike other crossbenchers who have established their own parties — such as Jacqui Lambie, Tammy Tyrrell, Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson — she does not intend to name her party after herself.

She is keeping the name under wraps for now but said it would be an “aha moment” for people.

The mere speculation about her forming a party had prompted people to get in touch about joining.

“I’ve already been receiving calls from former disenfranchised Labor members and former candidates basically saying the same thing about how Labor’s just lost its way and they’re very disappointed at the current leadership and the trajectory that the party is headed,” she said.

The WA senator hired “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery as her chief of staff in July.

The move prompted her former Labor colleagues to say it was “completely unsurprising” she was now launching a party.

One said the increasing number of minor parties on the left would make it difficult for new entrants to cut through the noise, and Senator Payman’s positioning was more likely to take votes from the Greens than Labor.

Mr Druery made his name in helping mostly centre-right micro parties harvest votes from upper house voting tickets to get elected, including Wilson Tucker for the Daylight Saving Party in WA.

He said last week he firmly believed there was “a Senate seat going begging in every State” for a clever minor party.

The Turnbull government changed the electoral laws in 2016 to make it harder for crossbenchers to get elected in the Senate on a very small number of primary votes.