Fatima Payman quits Labor but will remain in upper house as independent

WA senator said earlier she had been ‘exiled’ after warning she was prepared to cross the floor again over Palestine statehood

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The outspoken Western Australia senator Fatima Payman has quit the Labor party but will stay in the upper house as an independent in a major rupture with the Albanese government over Palestine.

Payman, who had already been indefinitely suspended from Labor’s federal parliamentary caucus after warning that she was prepared to cross the floor again, announced on Thursday she had resigned from the party.

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