The decision last week by Western Australian first term Senator Fatima Payman to resign from the Labor Party two years into her six year term and sit (for now) on the cross benches as a result of her stance on the Palestinian state issue has caused a problem for the Labor Party and an ironic triumph for the Greens.

It was not an issue I was planning to write about, but I have changed my mind, as the matter has considerable relevance for our national conversations in relation to both how we view our democracy going forward, and in casting a closer lens over our political history.

Let’s start with getting my own particular (peculiar) views and values out of the way. I am unashamedly a ‘narrow minded Italian Catholic conservative peasant from Footscray’.

Unpacking some of that, I have a lot of conservative Italian peasant values in my baggage. I am also pro-British monarchy and was a member of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy back when it was relevant in the 1990s, and self-identify as British to some degree (well, all Australian citizens were also British subjects til 1985).

I am not particularly church going and am quite skeptical about religion, if not outright sacrilegious in my outlook. However, I have regularly wandered off the plantation and given my primary vote to the DLP in the upper house in both state and federal elections in the past. This is not really because of my Catholic hard wiring, but rather because of my nostalgic sympathy for their hard line anti-communism.

In terms of polarising issues like abortion and the Palestine-Israel question, I am ‘middle of the road’, which means that I will not make friends on either side of the divide. On abortion, I am reluctantly pro-choice, which means that I will not be befriended by people who are serious about abortion on demand, and will be regarded as evil by the right-to-life mob. On Palestine-Israel, I believe that Israel has a right to exist, but so too do the Palestinians. The IDF needs to stop bombing the bejesus out of the Gaza Strip, and Bibi Netanyahu needs to be thrown out of office and prosecuted for corruption and possible war crimes. On the other hand, it is impossible to countenance the recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state whilst thugs like Hamas have an autocratic stranglehold on the political apparatus.

My positions, as someone whose vote is not influenced by either of these polarising issues, and who definitely is not about to join a protest rally on either side for either topic, are what I consider moderate. I do not really have a dog in those fights.

Senator Payman however, sees differently on the issue of Palestine, to the point where she felt it a matter of conscience to break Labor party caucus solidarity and both cross the floor of Parliament to vote against her party’s policy position, and to do so with public lack of repentance.

Her statements to her colleagues that she was praying for guidance as to what she should do were met with derision and leaked to the media. The modern Labor Party is quite secular, particularly when you compare it to previous generations, and the thought of someone earnestly praying seems alien to many senior Labor people.

She now has left the Labor Party, and is in talks with a number of Islamic groups who are disillusioned with Labor. Labor’s position on the current situation in the Gaza Strip is one which horrifies many Muslims, particularly those who have whole heartedly supported Labor for many years.

It appalls me as well, and I do not support Labor. That the Coalition, whom I usually support, albeit with a very healthy dose of skepticism, is attacking Labor for not being pro-Israel enough, disgusts me. Conversations with like-minded people suggests to me that our political leaders on either side of politics are being cowardly and dishonest on the whole difficult Palestine-Israel matter.

I was saying at this start of this post that the Greens have scored an ironic triumph with their tactics which have caused Senator Payman to leave the Labor Party. I say that this is ironic because the Greens are as secular as they come, and they have often come close to expressing intolerance of religion (particularly Christianity) in their public statements and behaviours (eg Senator Hanson-Young with her ‘Keep your rosaries off my ovaries’ t-shirt).

And whilst the Greens are secular, they may now have unbottled the sectarian genie yet again into Australian politics.

The informal alliance whom Senator Payman is holding talks with call themselves The Islamic Vote. She is also taking advice from mathematical maven Glenn Druery, the ‘Preference Whisperer’, who has spent much of the past 25 years manipulating the proportional representation system in Australia’s upper houses to get the members of minor and micro parties elected.

Some people might argue that this is solely a Labor problem as the disillusionment in the Islamic vote is exclusively going to affect the Labor vote and in safe Labor held seats, as the demographic in question tends to live mostly in Labor seats and vote consistently for Labor candidates.

Take that Albo! Haha.

But this is a bigger problem than that. It is a problem about how we as a nation have spent the past 120 years failing to have a serious conversation about the role of religion in politics.

As a general rule, Australians are quite secular and skeptical of both authority and religion. It is something that probably stems from the convict era, where a large part of the population were either convicts or descended from convicts, where the authorities were seen as oppressors and the clergy were often agents of the authorities (such as the ‘flogging parson’, the Reverend Samuel Marsden).

But despite that, many people do, at least nominally, still adhere to a religion. I for one still tick the Roman Catholic box on the religion question at the Census, even though it is rare you will see me inside a church outside of a wedding or funeral.

The sectarian genie has run amok through Australian politics at least twice since Federation.

The first time was during the First World War, when the Labor Party split mostly between Irish Catholics on one hand and Protestants on the other, on the issue of conscription for service on the Western Front. It took a decade for it to recover from that split, only in time for the Great Depression to annihilate the Scullin government.

The next time was in the 1950s, where the Catholic dominated Victorian branch of the ALP was effectively forced out by the Opposition Leader, Dr Evatt, and formed the nucleus of what was to become known as the Democratic Labor Party. The DLP was very successful in keeping Labor out of government federally until 1972, in Victoria until 1982, and in Queensland til 1989.

Much as I consider myself as anti-Labor, it is not healthy for a democracy to have consistently one sided election results for decades. Most governments do not deserve to be in power for more than three consecutive terms at most.

Nor is this a uniquely Labor problem, even though it has manifested itself most visibly inside the Labor Party. In recent years, congregations of various Christian evangelical churches and post Christian religions like the Mormons have joined the Liberal Party in considerable numbers. Their values, whilst conservative, probably belie the nominal Liberal values of individual liberty which are meant to be the driving force behind the Liberal party.

Previously, such people could find voice for their vote through the Family First Party or the Reverend Fred Nile’s Call To Australia – parties which cater almost exclusively to a sectarian Christian conservative social base.

And of course, whilst we like to talk about the separation of Church and State, as set out in Christ’s Give Unto Caesar commentary, the historical reality is that pre-enlightenment, the Church had an integral role to play in politics in the Western State. Christianity first came to prominence with the Emperor Constantine, who took a very active hand in determining doctrinal disputes and shaping it from an underground movement into an institution capable of assisting the Roman state to control civil society.

So where does that leave us? I did not vote DLP as my upper house protest vote at the last state election, but that was mostly because (as I have written previously in this blog) the DLP chose to act without integrity in their choice of candidates.

Parties like the DLP and Family First do appeal to people who have mainstream liberal-conservative values, but who may not have any particularly strong religious convictions. But their purpose is primarily faith driven.

If Senator Payman is successful in becoming the front woman for an Islamic based political party, it will simply be the latest twist in over a century of sectarian based disputes in the Australian political system.

It will not be a good development, as it will both destabilise the Labor Party as previous sectarian disputes have done, and also possibly become a political force which represents religious interests rather than those of the broader community.

Neither would be good for Australian democracy as a whole. We are better served by broad based popular parties with a greater degree of engagement in the community as a whole.

To that end, the conversation we need to have as both a nation and a community is one where we all (including people like me with my sly tendency to wander to the DLP box on the ballot paper) start to think about whether it is healthy for us to indulge religious interests at all in our political parties.

That also includes our politicians showing genuine respect for people who actually adhere to some faith, and to listen to the concerns of the community on significant polarising issues, rather than to be cowardly and prevaricating.

Otherwise, the Greens are going to enjoy their ironic current triumph as a pyrrhic victory indeed.