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October 9, 2024 – 07:00
Sydney (Australia), Oct 9 (EFE).- Australian senator Fátima Payman, who left the ruling Labor Party last July due to its position on Gaza, announced this Wednesday the creation of a new formation for those whom she has “left “back” the old policy.
«Many have felt a growing frustration, a feeling of having been abandoned. To scream into the void. (…) We need a voice. It is this cry for change that has brought us here today. Because we can no longer sit by while our voices are drowned out by the same old politics,” said the senator during the launch of the new party, The Voice of Australia.
The party, which according to its founder positions itself neither to the right nor to the left, has been registered with the Australian Electoral Commission and will present candidates in both houses of Parliament.
The until now independent senator has not yet revealed any candidate, but said during the party’s presentation that “a growing number of people [estaban] raising their hands” to join and that he had spoken to “disenfranchised Labor” and members of the opposition National Party.
On June 25, the senator, of Afghan origin, voted in favor of a motion presented by the opposition Green Party in support of the recognition of a Palestinian state that was rejected by the ruling Labor Party and the opposition conservative coalition.
As a result of Payman’s vote, Labor temporarily suspended the 29-year-old politician, who later left her former party.
The senator then said that she knew what it was like to feel like a “victim of injustice” and that her family did not flee Afghanistan as refugees “to remain silent in the face of atrocities inflicted on innocent people.”
The war in Gaza has become a thorny issue for the Australian Labor Government, which publicly supports a two-state solution and is criticized for its lack of position against Israel’s retaliation.
The war between Israel and Hamas after the terrorist group’s attack against several points in Israeli territory on October 7, has left more than 40,000 dead, including women, children and the elderly, as well as journalists and humanitarian workers. EFE
from-raa/pav/sbb
