In her first week as an independent senator, Payman says she will have to abstain from voting if she feels insufficiently briefed. It’s not an idle warning.
Fatima Payman is a woman in a bind. The newly independent senator is unshackled from having to follow the policy dictates of the Labor Party. But she says her desire to exercise her own judgment is being stymied by a lack of parliamentary staff, forcing her to abstain from voting on key bills.
“I take my job seriously. I’m not here to just have a cruisy ride for the next four years,” she says.“It’s important I do justice to my constituents and that requires me to have the resources to do my job.” “It’s in the best interest of everyone,” she says, for the staffing issue to be resolved, including the government. “I’m not here to be an obstructionist.”to describe Palestinian liberation. The acrimonious rupture between Labor and the nation’s first veil-wearing Muslim parliamentarian sparked a debate about how the major parties can better support younger politicians from non-Western backgrounds.
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