Fatima Payman attended the Australian Islamic College and studied pharmacy at the University of Western Australia.
59 Facts About Fatima Payman
1.
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Fatima Payman was president of Young Labor WA and an organiser for the United Workers Union, before becoming an electorate officer for WA Labor politician Pierre Yang.
3.
At the 2022 Australian federal election, Fatima Payman was elected to the Australian Senate as a senator for Western Australia.
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Fatima Payman was the third-youngest member to have been elected to the Senate and the first female member of parliament to wear a hijab.
5.
On 25 June 2024, Fatima Payman crossed the floor to support a Greens resolution to recognise a Palestinian state, leading to her being indefinitely suspended from the Labor caucus.
6.
On 4 July 2024, Fatima Payman quit the Labor Party to sit as an independent, and on 9 October 2024, she launched her own political party, Australia's Voice.
7.
Fatima Payman is of paternal Tajik heritage and her mother is Uzbek.
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Fatima Payman's family fled the Taliban for Pakistan when she was five years old.
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Fatima Payman's father arrived in Australia by boat in 1999 and spent time in immigration detention.
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Fatima Payman then worked as a security guard, kitchen hand and taxi driver, so he could afford to sponsor the migration of his wife and four children.
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The rest of the family arrived in Australia in 2003, when Fatima Payman was eight, and settled in Perth.
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In 2013, Fatima Payman graduated as head girl from the Australian Islamic College in Perth.
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Fatima Payman attended the University of Western Australia, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Diploma of Pharmaceutical Science.
14.
Fatima Payman worked as a pharmacy assistant and chemist at Terry White's from February 2018 until February 2020.
15.
Fatima Payman joined the United Workers Union in 2018 as an organiser and was president of Young Labor WA, having been a member of the Labor Party since 2014.
16.
Fatima Payman recalled her observation of her father's experiences of workplace abuse and exploitation as a main motivation for joining the two organisations.
17.
Fatima Payman worked as electorate officer for Pierre Yang from 30 May 2019 to 23 December 2020.
18.
Fatima Payman was third on the Labor Party's Western Australian ticket for the Senate at the 2022 Australian federal election and was not expected to win a seat.
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Fatima Payman intended to use the 2022 election campaign as "practice" before seriously running in 2025.
20.
Fatima Payman was naturalised as an Australian citizen in 2005, although this did not automatically revoke her Afghan citizenship according to Afghan law.
21.
Fatima Payman says she approached the Afghanistan embassy in Australia in October 2021 to renounce her Afghan citizenship, and that the embassy could not proceed with the formal process because it had no contact with the new Taliban government following the 2021 Taliban offensive.
22.
The Labor Party received legal advice that Fatima Payman was nevertheless still eligible to be elected, deeming that she had taken "all reasonable steps" to renounce her Afghan citizenship.
23.
Fatima Payman noted that the Afghan Embassy in Australia did not know whether the departments and officers responsible for processing her application in Kabul even existed.
24.
Fatima Payman's election was the first time the ALP won three Senate seats in WA since the Senate had been expanded in 1984.
25.
Fatima Payman is the first female member of parliament to wear a hijab.
26.
Fatima Payman has said her priorities include "getting more people from diverse backgrounds involved in politics, improving early childhood education, and climate change".
27.
Fatima Payman has said she wants to "normalise hijab wearing".
28.
On 4 December 2022, Fatima Payman was awarded "Australian Muslim Role Model of the Year" at the 15th Australian Muslim Achievement Awards at the Sydney Opera House.
29.
Fatima Payman concluded her speech by remarking "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free".
30.
Fatima Payman's speech was noted by The Guardian as a "significant rupture with the Labor party position".
31.
On 17 June 2024 Fatima Payman wrote an article in Al Jazeera English supportive of recognition of Palestine by Australia and argued "Such a move would support the peace efforts, not undermine them, as some have argued".
32.
On 25 June 2024, Fatima Payman crossed the floor to vote in favour of a resolution supporting Australian recognition of Palestinian statehood, voting with the crossbench against the government and opposition.
33.
Fatima Payman stated "My decision to cross the floor was the most difficult decision I have had to make".
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Fatima Payman then stepped down from two parliamentary foreign affairs committees and was suspended from caucus for the remainder of that parliamentary sitting week.
35.
Later, on 30 June 2024, Fatima Payman was suspended indefinitely from the Labor caucus after stating in an interview that she would cross the floor again if a similar resolution was before the Senate and can no longer participate in any parliamentary meetings of the caucus.
36.
Fatima Payman received support for crossing the floor from the Labor Friends of Palestine, who stated Fatima Payman's actions were "entirely consistent with Labor principles and policy".
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The Australian National Imams Council and Australian Greens leader Adam Bandt both praised Fatima Payman's act as courageous.
38.
Former Labor politician Harry Quick, who was expelled from the party after crossing the floor in 2007, stated his admiration for Fatima Payman and urged her to not "bend or waver".
39.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong criticised Fatima Payman's decision, stating that party disagreements should be handled "internally", and that she herself had previously voted against same-sex marriage in keeping with party policy despite her own personal support of it.
40.
On 1 July 2024, Albanese said that Fatima Payman's actions had disrupted the government's messaging "the day before the most significant assistance that has been given to working people in a very long period of time", referring to the stage three tax cuts and energy bill relief which came into effect that day.
41.
Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley stated that Fatima Payman crossing the floor was a sign of Anthony Albanese's "weak leadership".
42.
Fatima Payman said her choice to abstain on Labor's amendment and to vote for the final Greens motion was consistent with Labor's platform which endorsed a two-state solution and made Palestinian recognition "an important priority".
43.
Aly said that Fatima Payman "could have voted for [the Labor amendment] if she held Labor values".
44.
Labor MP for Higgins, Michelle Ananda-Rajah, criticised Fatima Payman by saying that there had been "numerous opportunities" for Fatima Payman to raise her concerns internally.
45.
On 4 July 2024, Fatima Payman quit the Labor Party to sit as an independent in the Senate.
46.
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe praised Fatima Payman as being on the "right side of history".
47.
In September 2024, Fatima Payman delivered a two-minute critique of government failure to accommodate young voters, who she believed feel "disenfranchised" by the two major parties.
48.
The speech gained notoriety due to its usage of slang words directed at the younger audiences of Generation Z and Generation Alpha, with Fatima Payman saying, "it is for this reason that I shall now render the remainder of my statement in a language they can understand".
49.
Albanese suggested that Fatima Payman should resign from the Senate, giving her seat to Labor, and contest the election with her new party instead of remaining to serve her full Senate term.
50.
Fatima Payman rejected this and suggested her new party could run a candidate in Albanese's electorate of Grayndler at the next federal election.
51.
In launching the party, Fatima Payman stated that Australia's Voice would be "a new political party for the disenfranchised, the unheard, and those yearning for real change", and that the ALP had "lost its way".
52.
In November 2024, Fatima Payman clashed with Senator Pauline Hanson, accusing her of racism after she wanted Senator Fatima Payman to prove her eligibility to take a seat in the Senate under Section 44c of the Constitution.
53.
In February 2025, Fatima Payman attended an International Women's Day event organised by the Benevolent Iranian Women's Association, which said it aimed "to provide factual information, first-hand experiences, and authentic observations about Iran, women in Iran, and expose the skewed and incomplete narrative represented in Western media".
54.
At the event, Fatima Payman spoke to Iranian state media company Press TV, during which she praised Iran for allowing women to participate in the workforce and have a voice as part of the democratic process.
55.
Fatima Payman was criticised for her comments, including by Australian United Solidarity for Iran, which accused Payman of aligning with the rhetoric of the Iranian government, which has been widely condemned for human rights abuses against women.
56.
Fatima Payman later apologised, stating her comments reflected experiences shared by others at the event and not her personal opinion, and stated she was unaware of Press TV's political affiliations.
57.
Siamak Ghahreman, president of the Australian Iranian Community Organisation, wrote to Home Affairs minister Tony Burke to request an investigation into whether Fatima Payman's remarks were influenced by foreign entities.
58.
Fatima Payman has worked as a program coordinator at the Edmund Rice Centre WA.
59.
Fatima Payman was listed as a board member of the Australian Islamic College as of 2022.