Labor senator Fatima Payman says she has been “exiled” and has accused some MPs of trying to “intimidate” her into resigning, in a growing scandal for the government.

Payman turned up the heat on the dispute, with an incendiary statement on Monday afternoon.

She said she had lost contact with her caucus colleagues since she was suspended on Sunday.

“I have been removed from caucus meetings, committees, internal group chats and whips bulletins,” she said.

“I have been told to avoid all chamber duties that require a vote, including divisions, motions and matters of public interest.

“I have been exiled.”

Payman said the actions led her to believe “that some members are attempting to intimidate me into resigning from the Senate”. As a result, she said, she would abstain from any Senate votes this week, unless there was a conscience vote.

“I will use this time to reflect on my future and the best way to represent the people of Western Australia,” she finished.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese summonsed Payman to The Lodge on Sunday to tell her her one-caucus suspension was an indefinite benching, following an unauthorised interview at the weekend.

The dispute distracted from the government’s desire to sell its tax cuts and other cost-of-living measures that took effect from Monday.

Asked on ABC radio on Monday morning about Payman, Albanese said her suspension was not because she backed a two-state solution in Israel.

“It’s not because of her support for a policy position that she’s advocated, it’s because of the question that you’ve just asked me. Today is July 1. It’s a day where we want to talk about tax cuts. We want to talk about our economic support for providing that cost-of-living relief without putting pressure on inflation,” Albanese said.

“Instead, you have seamlessly segued into the actions of an individual which is designed to undermine what is the collective position that the Labor Party has determined.”

Payman, a first-term senator from Western Australia, was initially suspended from this week’s Labor caucus meeting after crossing the floor to back a Greens’ motion supporting recognition of Palestinian statehood. In an interview with the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday, she doubled down on that view.

“If the same motion on recognising the state of Palestine was to be brought forward tomorrow, I would [cross the floor again],” Payman told Insiders.

“When I made the decision on the Senate floor to cross, I did it with the understanding that this could lead to expulsion and costing my Labor membership.”

Payman said Labor was “rank-and-file members, are unionists, are phone bankers, door-knockers, life-long members of the party who put together the platform”, adding she wouldn’t quit the party.

The Afghanistan-born senator also insisted she wasn’t a token diversity hire.

Labor’s policy platform includes recognition of a Palestinian state but it has caveats and no timeline.

Albanese said Payman was welcome back if she was prepared to be a team player.

“No individual is bigger than the team. And Fatima Payman is welcome to return to participating in the team if she accepts she’s a member of it,” he said.

Albanese criticised the Greens motion on Palestinian recognition, saying it did nothing to advance peace. He also chastised the minor party for not backing a Labor proposal.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong attempted to amend the Greens motion. Her amendment would have added the suffix “as a part of a peace process in support of a two-state solution and a just and enduring peace” but was voted down.

The Greens motion couldn’t be supported as it didn’t affirm a two-state solution, Albanese said.

“That’s a collective position that Labor has had,” he said.

Payman maintained she voted in line with her “Labor values”.

But the same values were embedded in Wong’s amendment, minister Anne Aly said.

“She could have voted for it if she, as she says, holds Labor values,” she said.

“Had things been different, we may well have seen the recognition of Palestine in the Senate.”

Failing to add the context of a two-state solution made the Greens push “tokenistic”, Aly said.

“I don’t want this to be tokenistic. I want this to be a very clear message to the Palestinian people that Australia supports their aspirations for statehood,” she said.

Albanese said Payman was elected as part of the Labor Party, not an individual.

“She wasn’t elected to the Senate because a quarter of a million West Australians put a No.1 next to her name, they put a No.1 in a box that said Australian Labor Party,” he said.

The death toll in Gaza continues to mount, with 38,000 dead, according to the local Hamas-run health ministry. It follows Israel’s counteroffensive after the designated terrorist group killed 1200 people and took 250 hostages on October 7.

-with AAP