Deputy Greens leader Mehreen Faruqi is not surprised Muslim communities want to field candidates, saying their voices have "for too long been ignored".
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Queried on her views on The Muslim Vote, a grassroots organisation set to run candidates in some Western Sydney Labor strongholds, Senator Faruqi said the major parties had failed to address the needs of those communities.
"People of colour and Muslims have for too long been ignored in this country," she told ABC TV on Sunday.
Politicians from both the major parties had used migrant communities as "tokens" and "photo opportunities", she said.
"So I don't find it surprising at all that communities are organising and communities are saying, 'well, you know, we want our voices heard, and one way to do this is to actually organise and to put up candidates'."
According to the 2021 census, the number of Australians who identify as Muslim, from all forms of Islam, totalled 813,392 people, or 3.2 per cent of the population.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has raised concerns about the nation going down the road of faith-based politics, saying it would "undermine social cohesion".
"It is not a concern for me, people have a right to, you know, to have faith in this country, and people have a right to express that faith," Senator Faruqi said.
She believes in a "secular parliament of church and state" and would like to see the Lord's Prayer no longer read out at the start of each Senate day.
"I would like to get rid of it because so many peoples of different faiths and from all over the world live in this country, and that is not representative," she said.
Her comments followed the controversial resignation last week of Western Australian senator Fatima Payman from the Labor Party over her stance on Palestine.
Senator Faruqi said she had been in touch with the senator over the past few weeks but had not tried to recruit her to the Greens.
"Being the other brown Muslim woman in that Senate, I can understand far better than most what Senator Payman has been going through," she said.
Government Services Minister Bill Shorten said he was disappointed Senator Payman had left the party but it was ultimately her decision.
Yet were Mr Shorten to leave the Labor Party, he said he would give up his seat.
"As charming and charismatic as individual candidates are, people vote for parties, quite often," he told Sky News on Sunday.
Australian Associated Press
