WA Senator Fatima Payman abstained from most votes in Parliament since turning independent

Fatima Payman has chalked up a remarkable 91 per cent abstention rate in votes on legislation since becoming an independent, The West can reveal as she launches her new political party.

The WA senator on Wednesday unveiled a party named Australia’s Voice, but as yet she has no candidates, policies or funding.

Her voting record since she quit Labor in July shows that she has rarely raised her own voice in Parliament to represent her constituents.

Asked about what policies her party would run, Senator Payman said people should look to her speeches since becoming an independent as an indication of what it would stand for.

But she has not spoken on any legislation since quitting Labor and has voted in just five out of 57 divisions on bills.

Exclusive analysis of Hansard and voting records shows she didn’t vote in any divisions at all on six of the 17 Senate sitting days between quitting Labor and the end of Tuesday.

Out of a total of 151 votes, she has taken a position just 34 times —and contrary to Labor’s stance about two-thirds of the time.

She voted against Labor’s overhaul of the NDIS and in favour of a Greens bill to ban native logging, which is already banned in WA.

Some of the votes she failed to take a position on include an anti-abortion motion from United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet, and an anti-trans bill proposed by One Nation and blocked by Labor and the Greens.

Senator Payman blamed her lack of voting record on not having enough staff.

“I have been pressing on the importance of the Prime Minister providing me the full staff allocation that is granted to all other independent senators so that I can get across the legislative agenda and make informed decisions,” she told The West Australian.

“Nonetheless, I have spoken on an array of matters that are important to Western Australians taking every opportunity to air their concerns and be their voice in the chamber.”

Senator Payman is entitled to five electorate staff, the same as every other senator, and hired the final two of this complement on Monday. She also draws a full backbench salary of $233,643.

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

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has the discretion to allocate extra staff for MPs, but he has so far stonewalled Senator Payman’s request.

Earlier this week he said 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.

Others have also suggested her position – a surprise third seat for the party in WA – should be returned to Labor, pointing out she only won the spot because of “above the line” ALP voters.

Most of the independent crossbench senators have two additional staffers, except for former Liberals David Van and Gerard Rennick.

Out of the 15 speeches Senator Payman has made, one was to explain she had quit Labor and would sit on the crossbench, another introduced her new party and 10 were two-minute statements every senator has an opportunity to give before question time each day.

This included the speech full of Gen Z and Alpha slang that made international headlines.

None were contributions to legislation.

Nor did she speak on a motion regarding the October 7 anniversary moved by Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Tuesday evening, which attracted passionate speakers from all sides of the parliament, including firmly pro-Palestinian contributions from greens senators and Lidia Thorpe.

Senator Payman split from Labor in July over differences in approach to recognising Palestinian statehood.

However, when asked whether Australia’s Voice candidates would have to hold the same position as her on the Middle East conflict, Senator Payman said it would come down to recruiting people with a “value alignment”.

But the independent WA senator is yet to recruit candidates or articulate policies beyond saying 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.”

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.

That positions her in a niche segment of Australian politics

She intends that 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.

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.