Senator Fatima Payman

Senator Fatima Payman. Photo: Missing Perspectives

Senator Fatima Payman describes pushback from the Labor Party after visiting a university encampment

The reaction to her visit to a pro-Palestine university encampment led to the politician making a big decision.

With reporting by Zahra Al Hilaly.

In an interview with Missing Perspectives, now-independent Senator Fatima Payman has revealed that she experienced pushback from within the Labor Party after visiting a pro-Palestine university encampment at Curtin University in Western Australia.

"I think one of the more recent experiences that sort of made me call this a genocide on 15th of May, which was the day of the commemoration of Nakba, was when I visited the Curtin University encampment. And I was simply there with my husband to take some Afghan tea and breakfast for all the students who've been camping out for almost two-and-half weeks and then a cold morning," Senator Payman tells Missing Perspectives.

"So for me, it was just a natural inclination to go and as the elected representative to just hear from them. I'm not there to give any promises or to say that I would fix the problem or that this was any definitive way of me showing a stance. This was me simply doing my job as an elected official to go and listen."

Senator Payman describes having "a robust conversation", noting she observed the "frustration of those students because if I was in their place and I had a member of the government come and visit us, I would definitely have, you know, shown the same level of outrage".

Senator Fatima Payman

Senator Fatima Payman. Photo: Missing Perspectives

"I left the encampment and literally a few hours later I received a phone call from a senior member of my WA federal colleagues who basically was asking, 'Have you received any clearance for this visit? Did you get any lines? Does the foreign minister's office know that you're here? You know, what was said, what was not said? Did you make any promises? Is this going on social media? You know, how long have you been signing to go?'

"It really made me feel like I've got a tracker on my back," reflects Senator Payman.

"Like, are you kidding me? I can't perform my own duties as a federal representative of this day without feeling like I'm constantly monitored and watched. It just was absolutely bizarre."

A few days later, Senator Payman recalls taking a flight and then having a call with her husband, where she told him, "I'm gonna call this a genocide. I'm gonna say I'm gonna call it for what it is." And I mean the G word was not to be used," she explains.

"It's just frustrating that that's what the world's come to. And I must say that I'm so impressed by the courage and the tenacity of our young people, by everyone out there who literally broke the PR of the state of Israel and ensured that the reality on the ground, the atrocities taking place in Gaza were literally live streamed - and the media representatives whose lives were literally sacrificed so that you and I could actually see what was happening on the ground, you know, needs to be acknowledged."

Senator Payman commended the "patience and perseverance" of young people speaking out, saying it instils confidence in her "about the direction we're headed... where our young people, our future leaders have a conscience and they were exercising and... they were calling on what our government should have been doing.

She says that was the "red line where I was like, 'No, that's it'. Like, I'll call it for what it is and whatever consequences I must face, I will face it because there's only so much you can take."