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Labor leadership is ‘authoritarian’ and the party has slumped into ‘stale groupthink’, one of the party’s MPs has claimed during an extraordinary late-night spray in parliament.
Anthony D’Adam accused fellow NSW Labor MPs of ‘bullying behaviour’ in a caucus meeting where he criticised Premier Chris Minns for his handling of a pro-Palestine demonstration on the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday.
Before police adopted a formal position on the protest, Mr Minns called for it to be scrapped, saying it would bring chaos to Sydney’s streets.
Anthony D’Adam lambasted Chris Minns over his handling of a pro-Palestine demonstration.
Despite his opposition, a number of state Labor MPs, including Mr D’Adam, were part of the crowd of more than 100,000 people that marched across the bridge.
Mr D’Adam said he used a caucus meeting on Monday to make ‘pointed criticisms’ about the premier’s position on Palestine and protests.
‘I was howled down, abused and told I should resign from the Labor Party, and a motion was moved to gag me from speaking,’ he said in parliament on Thursday night.
Anthony D’Adam (centre) marching alongside a number of NSW Labor MPs last Sunday
‘In my entire time in parliament, I have never witnessed such an event.
‘No apology has been received for the bullying behaviour I was forced to endure. It is deeply disturbing that the caucus appears incapable of entertaining dissenting views and took the step that it did.’
Mr D’Adam, who has been in NSW parliament since 2019 and worked for decades in the union movement, said a growing intolerance of dissenting views within Labor had produced ‘a stale groupthink’.
‘But my experience has been that the party is increasingly centralised and authoritarian in its disposition,’ he said.
While Mr D’Adam has regularly used parliament to criticise government policies, particularly crackdowns on protests, none has been so damning of the premier and party culture.
He is not the only NSW Labor MP to openly criticise the premier in recent weeks.
Fellow MPs Stephen Lawrence and Sarah Kaine, who were also part of the weekend bridge march, have argued Mr Minns’ largely anti-protest stance runs counter to Labor Party values.
‘I am a member of the Labor Party, not the Liberal Party. Our party is founded on protest and collective action,’ Mr Lawrence said.
Chris Minns (pictured) was slammed by his own Labor MPs over the Harbour Bridge protest
D’Adam pictured said he was bullied by his fellow MPs on Monday in a Labor meeting
A well-known advocate for the Palestinian people, Mr D’Adam claimed he was stopped from speaking on the topic at last year’s state Labor conference.
Labor’s national party platform calls for a two-state solution in the Middle East, for Palestine to be recognised as a state and for the issue to be an important priority for the Australian government.
Federal leaders, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, have yet to recognise Palestinian statehood despite moves from similar counties like France, Canada and the United Kingdom to do so.
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