PAYMAN’S SUSPENSION AN EFFECTIVE EXPULSION
West Australian Labor Senator Fatima Payman has been effectively expelled from the Labor Party, dominating front pages this morning. “Sin bin for rebel who called Labor’s bluff,” reads The Australian’s largest headline, while The Sydney Morning Herald writes: “PM extends senator’s ban from caucus”.
ABC News reports her suspension comes “after a series of defiant actions regarding her support for Palestine”, while the senator’s home-state paper The West Australian is selling copies with what it calls a “must-read”: “Defy Albo and pay the price”.
The West notes Payman “on Sunday morning said she wanted to remain inside [the] Labor caucus”, insisting her crossing the floor reflected party values. However, “there were concerns internally that [Prime Minister Anthony Albanese] could look weak if he didn’t come down harder on Senator Payman if there was a second breach of party convention”.
Last week, Payman crossed the floor to support a Greens motion supporting Senate recognition of the state of Palestine. Per The Conversation, Payman said: “What you just witnessed was the first Labor member to cross the floor in almost 30 years. My decision to cross the floor was the most difficult decision I have had to make.”
Then, on Sunday, she declared on ABC’s Insiders program she would do it again if necessary. That was the final straw for Albanese. Per Guardian Australia, Payman’s indefinite suspension “has the same effect as expulsion”, leaving her in “limbo” and allowing the party to avoid a “messy court challenge”, putting the ball in the senator’s court.
“It forces Payman to be the one who chooses permanent separation … In the Senate chamber, officially, she stays in her usual seat and does not physically move to the crossbenches. But regardless of the visuals, in reality that’s where she now is. She will be cut off from the government’s internal communications and will have to determine herself how she votes on each piece of legislation,” writes political editor Karen Middleton.
FAR RIGHT’S HOUR IN EUROPE
In Europe, it appears the far right is gaining strength — take Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for example, who is preparing to take over the rotating European Union presidency today. According to the Associated Press, many Brussels politicians are worried Orbán will seek to use the role to continue being “the bloc’s main spoiler”. Orbán has threatened to block Ukraine’s candidacy to become an EU member state, and has been accused domestically of “dismantling democratic institutions and violating the EU’s standards on the rule of law, leading the bloc’s legislature in May to call for the presidency to be taken out of Hungary’s hands entirely”.
Meanwhile in France, where voting has just begun in parliamentary elections, turnout has been high and many seem to have cast their ballots for the far-right National Rally party. According to The Washington Post, polls anticipate the party will garner about 34% of first-round votes, while the leftist New Popular Front would get 28%, and President Emmanuel Macron’s Together alliance would get 20%.
“[Marine Le Pen] called on her supporters and voters that didn’t back her party in the first round to push it over the line and give it a commanding legislative majority … predictions are difficult because of the two-round voting system, and because parties will work between the rounds to make alliances in some constituencies or pull out of others. Early official results for the first round were expected later Sunday,” France24 reported
A second round of voting on July 7 will give a clearer picture.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Does NASA really believe a large asteroid has a 72% chance of hitting Earth in 2038? Not quite. As the website Live Science reports, a hypothetical scenario war-gamed by the US space agency has been misreported in some places as a real threat. In fact, international experts were discussing what the planet’s response might be in the potential case of an asteroid hitting Earth.
“Simulating such a scenario can help give experts experience in dealing with such situations and highlight knowledge gaps in current protocols that need to be addressed in the future,” Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer emeritus at NASA headquarters in Washington, said in a statement issued by NASA.
Say What?
We were being gaslit.
US Democratic Party member Joe Salazar
Democratic Party functionaries in the US are worried the party is not taking seriously enough the impact of President Joe Biden’s “disastrous” debate performance against Donald Trump. An elected Democratic National Committee member who was on a call with colleagues at the weekend, where officials reportedly “ignored” the criticism of Biden’s debate effort, told the Associated Press the “substantive conversation” he was hoping for didn’t happen, and those on the call were instead told to be “cheerleaders”.
CRIKEY RECAP
“With less than a week to go, the UK appears to have run out of election. Everyone wants it over. Labour supporters are like children on Christmas Eve, caught in the hell of waiting. The Tories just want the mercy seat to spark up and take them to a better place. The smaller parties will be worried that in marginal but non-anti-Tory tactical seats, the sheer power of the Labour juggernaut will draw votes away from them, to the main chance.
They had a debate last night between both major leaders, and it felt like one of those debates attended by no major leaders, as if Plaid Cymru were going up against Count Binface. Both Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak accused each other of playing politics with political issues, which is a sure sign that politics is over. People have made up their minds. Further changes will be marginal.”
“The billion-dollar Defence-Thales scandal — in which the French arms giant was handed a $1.3 billion contract to run munitions facilities despite spectacularly failing in a bid process it had helped design — belatedly caught fire yesterday when defence secretary Greg Moriarty told the ABC’s Andrew Green the process has been referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission.
The scandal — unearthed by the auditor-general in the first of what will be two examinations of how Defence has handled munitions contracts — has rapidly gained notoriety due to a Defence official soliciting a bottle of champagne from Thales before heading off to join the company. That’s not the only example of unethical conduct unearthed by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO).”
“Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson woke yesterday to nightmare news: one of the world’s top airlines, Qatar Airways, is looking to buy a 20% slice of her biggest competitor, Virgin Australia. The move would serve to deepen and strengthen the existing codeshare deal between Virgin and Qatar, and has the potential to fast-track Virgin’s international ambitions beyond Bali, New Zealand, Japan and the Pacific.
Critically, it could also improve Virgin’s domestic services by allowing the airline to lease Qatar’s twin-aisle B777s, boosting capacity and passenger comfort. These planes could be used on routes such as East Coast to Cairns and Perth, as well as some existing international routes, pilots suggested to Crikey.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Biden assures donors he can still win election (BBC)
French voters propel far-right National Rally to strong lead in first-round legislative elections (AP)
Uruguay holds primary elections as opposition left gains ground (Reuters)
Fierce battles as Israel’s north-and-south Gaza ground invasions grind on (Al Jazeera)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Prepare for the toppling of private school politics — and a cultural change within Westminster — John Harris (The Guardian): “However airless and dull this election campaign has been, one thing remains incontestable: that, unless something very strange happens, we are about to reach the end of a long political era. The years between 2010 and 2024 will be seen as a clearly defined time — of austerity, Brexit, the post-2016 collapse of the Tory party into internal strife … and, underneath it all, a United Kingdom that will end its latest blue period in an immeasurably worse state than when the whole mess started.
One crucial part of the story, however, might be underplayed. Partly because so many powerful British people come from backgrounds characterised by wealth, privilege and private education, emphasising the importance of such things is still often seen as impolite. But if we are going to understand what has happened to us, how can that subject be avoided?”
Bregrets? They’ve got a few. Most Brits now think leaving EU was a mistake — Rob Harris (SMH) ($): “In Britain, Brexit refuses to go away. Eight years since the referendum, and over four years since Britain finally left the EU, the issue continues to generate headlines and spark furious debate. It is played out on high streets with shuttered stores and with chaos and queuing in airports.
There remains much talk of ‘Brexit regret’ — known by the neatly formed portmanteau ‘Bregret’ — especially among Leave voters, who won the referendum by a margin of 1,269,501 votes: 51.89% to 48.11%. About 65% of Britons in several polls say that, in hindsight, leaving the EU was the wrong move. Just 15% say the benefits have outweighed the costs.”
