<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <docID>330552</docID> <postdate>2024-10-09 16:26:12</postdate> <headline>‘A cry for change’: senator unveils new political party</headline> <body><p><img class="size-full wp-image-330553" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/20241009130982310271-original-resized.jpg" alt="" width="900" height="600" /></p> <caption>Independent Senator Fatima Payman will head up a new political party at the next election. (Mick Tsikas/AAP PHOTOS)</caption> <p><span class="kicker-line">By <b>Kat Wong and Andrew Brown</b> in Canberra</span></p> <p><strong>Australians are growing increasingly frustrated at the political duopoly, and independent senator Fatima Payman hopes her new party will ease their discontent.</strong></p> <p>The ex-Labor politician unveiled Australia's Voice on Wednesday and said it would run candidates at the next federal election, due by May 2025.</p> <p>The political party will stand up for the "disenfranchised and the unheard", Senator Payman said.</p> <p>"So many of you have told me with emotions in your hearts that we need something different, we need a voice," she told reporters in Canberra.</p> <p>"(Australians) are fed up of the two major parties playing politics and being afraid of making any form of progressive reform.</p> <p>"It is this cry for change that has brought us here today."</p> <p>Formal policies have not yet been announced, but Senator Payman has stressed she is not forming a faith-based party.</p> <p>Senator Payman, who was elected as a Labor candidate in 2022, quit the party in July over differing views on Palestine and has since served in the upper house as an independent.</p> <p>She is far from the first senator to break-off and start a new party, with Jacqui Lambie, Pauline Hanson and Gerard Rennick all preceding her.</p> <p>But the barriers to victory have grown as Australia's party system has become more crowded, according to election analyst Ben Raue.</p> <p>Parties founded by senators can get a boost through name recognition, however, they don't have deep roots - often lacking members and presence in local areas.</p> <p>There are also concerns Australia's Voice will find it difficult to differentiate itself from the Greens, but Mr Raue suggests there is potential for the party in the progressive space.</p> <p>"The Greens are the inner-city party of the educated middle class," he told AAP.</p> <p>The party has previously tried to target seats in more multicultural and lower-income communities but "there's a cultural misfit that doesn't quite work".</p> <p>"It's possible that someone like (Senator Payman) could attract votes in places like that - not just among Muslim voters - but amongst a bunch of communities that aren't white, that are under-represented, that maybe feel taken for granted by Labor," Mr Raue said.</p> <p>"It would actually be less about her competing with the Greens ... and more about her being able to peel off Labor's (voters)."</p> <p>The party hasn't decided where it will focus its campaign or whether it will take aim at the upper or lower house.</p> <p>If it is just an attempt to get Senator Payman re-elected, then efforts will likely concentrate on Western Australia.</p> <p>But that seems unlikely as the 29-year-old will not be up for re-election until the expected 2028 contest.</p> <p>The party's best opportunities lie with disaffected Labor voters in the mid-to-outer suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney, Mr Raue said.</p> <p>"Labor's already under attack from the Greens on certain angles and if she is able to attract these voters in different places where the Greens don't do as well - that could be interesting," he said.</p> <div class="wire-column__preview__text" id="preview-body"> <p>Senator Payman said there had been interest from people putting their hands up to run as a candidate under the Australia's Voice banner.</p> <p>"Australia's Voice is for each and every person, and we welcome candidates," she said.</p> <p>"We've already received so much interest from disenfranchised Labor candidates, former Labor candidates, we've had people from the National Party reach out and express interest."</p> <p>Australia's Voice will announce its candidate selection and policy platforms "in due course", Senator Payman said.</p> </div> <p>https://citynews.com.au/2024/payman-promises-full-body-contact-party/</p> </body>