Fatima Payman’s proposed new party has grand aims to run candidates in every state in Australia, but the venture may be more about raising her profile than upending politics at the next election.

Payman flagged the launch of a new political party ahead of the next federal election, although her seat in the Senate is not up for re-election until 2028.

“This new party will be tested not just in Western Australia but across the nation,” she said.

“If the PM really wants to arm wrestle, we may even run a candidate in Grayndler.”

Western Australian voters elected the now-independent senator as the fourth and final representative on Labor’s Western Australian ticket in 2022.

She left the party after crossing the floor and supporting a motion to recognise Palestinian statehood in June resulted in her suspension from the party room.

Dr Kevin Bonham, a psephologist and polling analyst, said that currently the details about the party are vague, but it will require a “substantial primary vote” to have any success in a crowded field of minor parties.

“This is the sort of thing you do for publicity, you run a candidate in the prime minister’s own seat,” he said.

“With the Payman party, we will have to wait and see how it develops: will it attract high-quality candidates or is it just going to be a lot of noise?”

Payman said that the party is not a ‘Muslim party’ and plans to run candidates in the lower house to increase the chance of senate success.

Profile

Mark Kenny, director of ANU’s Australian Studies Centre, said that Payman must raise her profile if she wants to be re-elected.

“It is pretty hard to imagine a party run by Payman having any real influence at the next federal election,” he said.

“There’s very little risk for Payman, however, because she’s got that six-year term and any profile she does get out of this may help her when she faces the electors.”

Payman has also employed Glen Druery, a political strategist and lobbyist who has successfully launched micro and minor parties into legislatures, as her chief of staff.

Bonham said that many of the “tricks” that Druery has employed in the past to elect candidates are no longer possible on a federal level after the 2016 senate reforms.

“You can still try various tricks around the edges if you can get yourself into a high place on the Labor how-to-vote card, that’s possibly worth a minor amount, but I don’t think that is likely to happen with Payman involved,” he said.

“The presence of Payman means there is going to be competition for people who are concerned with Palestine, but the Greens have been fairly resilient to competition in the senate over the years.”

Political consultant and ‘preference whisperer’ Glenn Druery has successfully elected minor parties in the past. Photo: ABC

‘This is diversity’

Kenny said that although there is some legitimacy to the Albanese government’s argument that Payman was only elected because she was on Labor’s senate ticket and should step aside, the party could have handled the situation more delicately.

“Labor wanted to have someone in the photo on their senate how to vote card looking modern, diverse and young,” he said.

“It comes with the reality that people with different cultural backgrounds to the standard white male phenotype that has characterised most of our political history are going to bring a different perspective.”

The Albanese government’s response to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East has been a contentious issue both inside parliament and on the streets, but Kenny said that Labor is terrified of being labelled anti-Semitic by the opposition and the Israeli lobby in Australia.

“Peter Dutton is accusing Albanese of talking out of both sides of his mouth and being weak on the issue of standing up for Israel,” he said.

“He wants to portray this as a simple case of right and wrong, black and white, but anyone who looks at it knows that atrocities have been enacted on both sides and there is a tail reaching back decades into history.”