The BFD | Waka Jumped on Both Sides of the Ditch

Australia doesn’t have a waka-jumping law, but it often feels like we need one. Time and again, political nobodies scrape together a few hundred votes courtesy of being included at the bottom rung of a party ticket. Having exploited the party name, they proceed to use it as a bully pulpit to grandstand and big note themselves before dumping the party altogether.

Lidia Thorpe and Fatima Payman are just two recent examples in Canberra. In Tasmania, a succession of waka-jumpers have created years of chaos for the Liberal government. A common thread is that these are people with almost no voter profile, who would never have made it into parliament on their own. Let’s be blunt: they were elected because of the party branding on their flyers.

So, the question becomes: if someone is elected on a party ticket and subsequently quits that party, should they consequently quit their seat and throw it to a by-election? The Tasmanian government is certainly mulling that option.

The new legislation would mean that any dissatisfied MP will probably think twice about quitting the party – because it means leaving politics – or if they do leave, they’ll be replaced with someone through a recount, almost definitely from the party they ditched.

ABC Australia

Or will it? So far, Darleen Tana is being let slide. She’s not only spent more than half her time in parliament collecting tens of thousands of dollars for doing nothing, but the Greens have so far dodged invoking the waka-jumping clause to have her kicked out.

No doubt Anthony Albanese is dearly wishing he had access to a similar law to rid himself of a meddlesome political parasite, the “unofficial Member for Gaza”, as Andrew Bolt has dubbed Fatima Payman.

Payman has quit the Labor party, for whom she became an “accidental senator” by scraping just 1200 votes at the bottom rung of a party ticket, after, by her own admission, Allah told her to. Which, as many have pointed out, raises the question of just who she represents, and what she owes loyalty to. Is it the Western Australians who elected her, or Gaza and Allah?

The only silver lining in this dire circus is that Labor is learning the hard way about pandering to young idiots and Muslims. After six months of soft-soaping the shocking rise of anti-Semitism in Australia, complete with Hamas/Nazi symbols flown from the roof of Parliament House, to the sound of anti-Semitic chants, Albo is finding out that bringing the camel into the tent only gets you covered in spit and fleas. Not only has the Senator for Gaza quit in a strategic move to undermine the government, Labor’s heartland in Western Sydney is falling prey to the literal Muslim Vote.

Within Labor’s own ranks, its far-left young idiots are cheering the Islamists and anti-Semites on.

While many government sources said Senator Payman’s actions – which included crossing the floor on a Greens motion to recognise Palestine without raising the matter in caucus first – represented a “betrayal”, Young Labor members said they “stood with Senator Payman”.

Because, of course they do. Jew-haters of a feather.

The Australian revealed on Monday Mr Albanese’s foundational faction, the NSW Young Labor Left, will host Senator Payman as a special guest in a forum next week to promote the cause of Palestine despite her resignation from the party.

The Young Labor Left has also celebrated the re-election in the UK of former British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was suspended from the party over his mishandling of claims of anti-Semitism and later expelled for running as an independent.

It wasn’t just Corbyn’s “mishandling of claims of anti-Semitism”, it was his own, repeated, flirtations with open anti-Semitism.

Britain is seeing perhaps the first open anti-Semites win elections since Mosley.

And Australia’s not far behind.

A senior NSW Labor source said they were appalled at the inclusion of Senator Payman to an event held by Labor, of which she was no longer a member, as well as its celebration of Mr Corbyn.

The Australian