I quite like Carrick Ryan’s take on this (apologies for FB link): facebook.com/…/pfbid02yEcgzfHPmMDv52kLe897qfcG55c…

A few days back I wrote about my discomfort at the inability of Labor MP’s and Senators to vote with their conscience. As I stated at the time, in theory every vote should be a conscience vote.

In fairness to Labor, I think it is worthwhile explaining how Labor operate under this strict discipline model, and why it isn’t necessarily as draconian as it might first sound.

In both houses of Parliament, an average of about 139 pieces of legislation are passed every year. This is spread across an average of about 70 sitting days.

In addition to legislation, there are countless “motions” that can be submitted by any member of the house which is really not much more than a statement of intent, or declaration of belief.

So how do MP’s know how to vote on each and every bill or motion that comes before them? Each party has a “Whip”, a senior member whose job it is to essentially tell everyone how the Party intends to vote on each matter. (Or if you’re an Independent, you do a LOT of reading).

How does the Whip know? Well in Labor’s case, the Party decides what its policy or stance will be through a Caucus Vote. This is a meeting of all elected MP’s and Senators from the Party in which the stance of the Party on individual issues are decided.

While the influence of senior members and factions obviously play a huge role in determining the outcome of these votes, they are held in secret and the vote of Prime Minister Albanese is worth no more than that of a back bencher.

Once the Caucus vote on a particular policy agenda, it is agreed that the whole Party will unify behind that agenda regardless on how they voted in Caucus. This is referred to as the pledge of Caucus Solidarity.

So why does Labor do this and why not let individual members vote as they please in Parliament?

The argument is that a consistent Party voting bloc means voters have a clear understanding of exactly what they are voting for when they elect a Labor candidate.

It means voters don’t have to interrogate the values of each local MP, they know what they are getting because they know what the Party stands for.

Fatima Payman had an opportunity in Caucus to convince her Party colleagues to vote in support of the Green’s motion, she evidently failed.

The moment she knew what the Labor stance towards it was, she knew she would be breaching Party rules by crossing the floor.

She breached the rule of Party solidarity, and whether or not you agreed with her stance, Albanese now has little option but to enforce the rules of the Party… otherwise the rules will be ignored.

It should be remembered that in the 2022 election, only 1,681 people voted for Payman directly. She has her seat in the Senate because she was the third placed Labor candidate for the Senate (and Labor won three Senate seats).

So while Payman should be applauded for following her convictions, it could also be reasonably argued that she has no mandate to pursue her own policy agenda in the Senate. She is in Parliament because West Australians voted for Labor, not her.

An obvious exception to this rule is when Party Leaders allow for a “conscience vote”. This is when an issue is acknowledged as deeply routed in personal ethics or societal morality, and each member is encouraged to then listen to their individual electorates and vote as they please (e.g. abortion or marriage equality).

Could Payman gave been given a conscience vote? Possibly, but allowing a conscience vote on what is essentially our national foreign policy is problematic. Having significant foreign policy being dictated by conscience votes would make us a very unpredictable ally and make it difficult to pursue long term agendas.

As is so often the case, it’s possible to believe two things.

It’s possible to believe Payman is a principled Woman who risked her political future to take a moral stand.

And, at the same time…

It’s possible to believe that Labor’s policy of Caucus solidarity has existed for almost 150 years, and she knew the rules when she joined the Party.

Whether she could have affected greater change within the Party Caucus than from her now exiled status is a debate worth having… I’m interested to hear your thoughts.