Fatima Payman (WA, Australia's Voice) Share this | Hansard source

If I had bumped into the Prime Minister today, I would only have one question for him: 'Prime Minister, what happened to our working relationship? You used to welcome me warmly. You were friendly in public, always with a smile, talking about me to young people in your speeches. But that changed the moment I stood on principle, and today I find myself co-signing a coalition bill not because I have changed sides but because I have stayed true to my duty.' For the past year, the Prime Minister has used the levers of power to punish dissent. Some might call it coercive control. I call it political retribution.

I didn't cross the floor on a whim; I crossed it on a matter of principle—and in support of Labor policy, no less. It is the very same principle the government have now come to support 14 months later. It was never personal, but the response has been. Since that moment, I have been excluded from key processes and stripped of the resources every senator needs to do their job. I have been treated more harshly than those sitting on the opposite side of the chamber. When I was a schoolgirl, I had my hijab ripped from my head by bullies. That didn't shake me then, and bullying won't shake me now.

I thank the coalition for introducing the Members of Parliament (Staff) Amendment (Providing Certainty and Improving Integrity) Bill 2025 to amend the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984. I also thank Senator Hanson for acknowledging my situation. When that act was first debated more than 40 years ago, a Liberal senator from Tasmania, Senator Michael Townley, warned that the act would one day be weaponised by an authoritarian prime minister to reward loyalty and punish dissent. He said:

I do not believe that is at all a good thing. It is open to patronage and should not really be contemplated by the Government.

Senator Townley saw what we're now living.

I have had no advisers since I joined the crossbench in July last year, a deliberate and targeted decision by our prime minister. No other crossbencher has been treated that way. This is the action of a vindictive prime minister who has disadvantaged Western Australians by weakening my ability to represent them. I am the only Western Australian to be able to put the people over any party. I am the only independent senator able to actually stand up for the interests of the great state that I represent. But the Prime Minister is stopping me from doing my job effectively. I have faced down online trolls, Islamophobes, racists and neo-Nazis, but I will not be bullied in my workplace.

If the Prime Minister were here in this chamber, I would ask him, 'Is this leadership, or is this a page torn from the Trump playbook?' because what we are witnessing is an abuse of executive power. Denying senators the means to scrutinise legislation isn't just unfair; he is in breach of the spirit of our Constitution, undermining the very purpose of the Senate as a house of review. Does he understand how this looks—petty, authoritarian, a political bully trying to coerce and control. I am a young Australian Muslim woman of colour. I've been bullied out of Afghanistan. I will not be bullied by this man.