00:00We've heard from the Senator herself yesterday making these suggestions or allegations that
00:09she was treated in a less than favourable manner in terms of the response to her crossing
00:16the floor.
00:17This morning we have heard from the Prime Minister for the first time at length about
00:22his response to her recent defection from the Labor Party, becoming the first member
00:31to defect from Labor during this term.
00:35The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, backed in his government's response to this, saying
00:41that the party is open and transparent, and hitting back against some of the suggestions
00:47about intimidation or that sort of conduct in the conversations between him and Senator
00:56Payman.
00:57Take a listen.
00:58One of the things I find disappointing about Senator Payman is that the decision that she's
01:05taken, she has a right to take that decision.
01:08At no stage, no stage, did Senator Payman stand in the caucus and make any comments
01:15about the Middle East or about anything else, about West Australians or about anything else.
01:23This follows a report that Senator Fatima Payman had questions, suggesting Senator Fatima
01:32Payman had questions to answer over her citizenship.
01:36The suggestion in those reports in the News Corp papers being that her dual citizenship,
01:42her dual Australian-Afghan citizenship meant that she may not be eligible to sit in Parliament.
01:51Senator Payman had gone through the process of trying to renounce her Afghan citizenship
01:57before making her way to Parliament in 2022, but we then have heard from her, seen a statement
02:08from her at that time saying that she sought legal advice.
02:11She was unable to progress with that bid to renounce citizenship in Afghanistan because
02:17the Taliban is in power there, making the case that there's no connection between the
02:22embassy and the government in Afghanistan, meaning there's, as she sees it and as the
02:28legal advice presented to her supports, that there's no case for her to answer on that question.
02:37This morning we also heard from the Prime Minister in regards to this news that the
02:42group The Muslim Vote is going to put forward candidates in a number of Western Sydney seats
02:49that are currently safe Labor seats as well.
02:51The Prime Minister saying that he sees no real place for faith-based parties in Australian
02:58politics, the concern from him being that that would potentially create or exacerbate
03:05issues with social cohesion.
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