The Australian government has tried to find a middle path when it comes to Gaza. Fatima Payman’s departure tells us that can be just as perilous

He might have already been trailing in the polls. There may have already been deep doubts among voters about whether he was too old for the job.

But it took just one appalling, hard to watch stumble, by US President Joe Biden last week, to lead even the most sober of analysts to not just say he should withdraw from the presidential contest, but even question his capacity for office in the months remaining of his presidency.

That was despite Biden's slip being made in a debate with a convicted felon and sexual abuser who was widely reported to have lied repeatedly on the night about the most basic of facts.

Politics has never been a wilder and more dangerous place, it seems.

In the UK, voters have thrown out an old government that had been proven incapable of managing its internal affairs, let alone profound issues like Brexit and COVID.

But even as they did so, there was a sobering message for Australian politics about how recent events in the Middle East had penetrated UK politics.

Labour and the Conservatives were both suffering big swings against them in seats where the population is more than 20 per cent Muslim. A BBC analysis, as voting continued on Friday, found Labour's vote is down an average of 19 per cent in those seats and the Conservatives 13 per cent.

Even though Labour has been in opposition, it is suffering the effects of voter anger over Gaza.

And it feels like politics has just got a whole lot more dangerous in Australia this week.

The news cycle during the past week of parliamentary sittings before the winter break has been dominated by Fatima Payman and the world of pain the government found itself in about what to do about the fact she had broken Caucus solidarity over a vote on Palestinian recognition and indicated she would do it again.

There's been plenty of going through the weeds of who said what to whom (or didn't), when were decisions made, and what secret plots were involved.

At its heart, Payman's defection to the crossbench is an outcome of the intense and growing angst among Middle Eastern communities about what has been happening in Gaza and what is perceived to have been an uneven, and/or slow response by Australia to the growing shocking casualty lists and human misery there, particularly relative to the outrage expressed about the original horrendous Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7.

The parliament has been, increasingly, deeply divided on Gaza. 

The Opposition speaks loudly and often about a rising tide of anti-Semitism as a result of events since October 7, but not quite so loudly about Islamophobia.

The Greens have taken a pro-Palestinian stance.

The government has tried to find a middle path, and warned often of the dangers of a breakdown in social cohesion.

But middle paths can be as perilous as extreme ones.

PM says 'faith-based politics will undermine social cohesion'

No-one, including Senator Payman, has come out of the machinations of her departure unscathed, or with completely clean hands.

The ruthless side of the Labor machine churned into action once Payman had made her departure official, with media being briefed that there were questions over her eligibility to sit in the Parliament because she still held Afghan citizenship (something that had apparently not worried the party when it put her on their WA Senate ticket in 2022).

The novice senator has done what she felt she needed to. But she has caused grievous damage to the party that elected her.

How her departure plays out politically is clearly linked with what happens to the push that has been going on for some months for either Muslim candidates, or candidates reflecting broader Middle Eastern communities, to run as independents — particularly in some of the south-Western Sydney seats that have long been Labor strongholds.

There are perilous questions for those communities whether they run or not, and for the way the broader political debate unfolds from here.

For the major parties the spectre of more independents generally, and potentially ones reflecting one religion, is deeply problematic.

The PM said on Friday that he didn't want Australia "to go down the road of faith-based political parties, because what that will do is undermine social cohesion".

Peter Dutton said he didn't "have any problem with a party that has a religious view. But when you say that your task is to, as a first order of priority, to support a Palestinian cause or a cause outside of Australia, that is a very different scenario".

The big questions are not just about numbers of seats, but how such an issue influences day-to-day politicking, particularly in the hands of a ruthlessly targeted politician who knows how to land his lines as Peter Dutton does.

Dutton's comments spark outrage 

His response on Thursday to a question about Senator Payman has sparked outrage in some quarters, but should actually also go into the political textbooks as an example of how to surgically hit every hot-button issue in one short grab for the cameras.

Asked about the prime minister's suggestion that planning for Payman's departure had been in place for over a month, Dutton said:

"I think what it does demonstrate is that the prime minister – if he's in a minority government in the next term of parliament it will include the Greens, it'll include the Green teals, it'll include Muslim candidates from Western Sydney. It will be a disaster.

"If you think the Albanese government is bad now, wait for it to be a minority government with the Greens, the green teals, and Muslim independents. That is not the formula for bringing grocery prices down and for getting our economy back on track. Inflation will continue to rage under that sort of government. Interest rates will go higher as we're seeing the Reserve Bank warn at the moment."

Paint the prime minister as weak? Tick. Conjure up uncertainty about a Labor minority government? Tick. Diminish the minor parties and independents? Tick. Somehow get the conversation back to grocery prices and interest rates? Tick.

Perceptions that there was some dog-whistling included in the linking of Muslim candidates to a "disaster" in the first half of Dutton's comments sparked outrage, including from Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja who tweeted that "as a Muslim who grew up in Western Sydney I find this comment from someone who is running for PM an absolute disgrace."

"Bigotry at its finest. Fuelling Islamophobia from the very top."

The first Muslim to be elected to federal parliament, industry minister Ed Husic, responded to Dutton on social media that; "Newsflash: There's not only been a Muslim candidate from Western Sydney for more than a decade now, there's also two of us who serve as ministers.

"Maybe try showing some leadership and bring people together rather than tear them apart ... it's been done before."

Unfortunately, not everyone seems on board for bringing people together these days. 

Laura Tingle is 7.30's chief political correspondent.