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. This morning we have heard from the Prime Minister for the first time at length
00:22about his response to her recent defection from the Labor Party, becoming the first member
00:31to defect from Labor during this term. The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, backed in
00:39his government's response to this saying that the party is open and transparent and hitting
00:45back against some of the suggestions about intimidation or that sort of conduct in the
00:53conversations between him and Senator Payman. Take a listen.
00:57One of the things I find disappointing about Senator Payman is that the decision that she's
01:03taken, she has a right to take that decision, at no stage, no stage did Senator Payman stand
01:11in the caucus and make any comments about the Middle East or about anything else, about
01:18West Australians or about anything else. This follows a report suggesting Senator
01:23Fatima Payman had questions to answer over her citizenship. The suggestion in those reports
01:29in the News Corp papers being that her dual citizenship, dual Australian-Afghan citizenship
01:36meant that she may not be eligible to sit in Parliament. Senator Payman had gone through
01:44the process of trying to renounce her Afghan citizenship before making her way to Parliament
01:51in 2022, but we then have seen a statement from her at that time saying that she sought
01:58legal advice, she was unable to progress with that bid to renounce citizenship in Afghanistan
02:05because the Taliban is in power there, making the case that there's no connection between
02:11the embassy and the government in Afghanistan, meaning there's, as she sees it and as the
02:16legal advice presented to her supports, that there's no case for her to answer on that
02:23question. Then this morning we also heard from the Prime Minister in regards to this
02:29news that the group The Muslim Vote is going to put forward candidates in a number of Western
02:36Sydney seats that are currently safe Labor seats as well. The Prime Minister saying that
02:41he sees no real place for faith-based parties in Australian politics, the concern from him
02:48being that that would potentially create or exacerbate issues with social cohesion.
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