Jacinta Nampijinpa Price opens up about the tragedies that drove her to become a leading No campaigner
An aunt she never got to know and a murdered nephew are twin family tragedies propelling Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to national prominence as the most high-profile No vote campaigner.
SA News
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Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price wants all of Australia to know about her aunt, Marion Nabarula Nelson, who disappeared from a remote part of the Northern Territory in 1982.
For generations, she says, Aboriginal communities and her own family have lived alongside such tragedies.
In 2020, nearly 40 years after her Aunt Marion went missing, Senator Price’s nephew, Kumanjayi Presley, was fatally stabbed in Alice Springs.
“Growing up in Alice Springs and knowing that half my family are those that come from some of the most marginalised people in this country, in remote communities, I’ve seen the way that violence and alcohol, substance abuse have ravaged my family members,” she said.
She is insistent that a constitutionally-enshrined Voice to Parliament would do nothing to fix such problems.
“The Voice is just a transfer of power for those who want to maintain the status quo, who want to cover up the reality of what’s really going on and, to me, I can’t constitutionally enshrine something that has silenced our most marginalised,” she said.
In the months leading up to the October 14 referendum, Senator Price has become a leading No vote campaigner.
Reasons for opposition deeply personal
But the reasons for her opposition are deeply personal.
“My Aunt Marion has been missing for four decades,” she said.
“Her father was a land rights activist, a chairman of the Central Land Council, he handed his daughter over at the age of 14 to be married off and in an arranged marriage with a man who had already murdered his first wife and done time for that.
“He has known that his daughter went missing, why his daughter went missing, how she went missing but he took that to the grave with him, and that has been a family secret that’s hidden in view of everybody.
“For someone to be held up as an elder and a leader and a land rights activist to have kept that whole time, knowing what’s happened to his daughter and done nothing about it, is the reason why I’ve fought so hard to highlight these issues.
“Especially when there are individuals like that are held in high regard by certainly Labor governments and by the wider community without really knowing the background of these individuals and the sorts of things they’ve maintained.”
If the No vote succeeds …
Asked what Australia looks like after the referendum if the No vote succeeds, Senator Price doesn’t hesitate: “a country that has been divided”.
“The issue of race hasn’t been so prominent in discussion as it is right now in our country’s history and there’s going to have to be a lot of work that needs to be done going forward,” she said.
SA Senator Kerrynne Liddle, a fellow No campaigner of Indigenous background, goes a step further. She expects the division to worsen.
“I think that, regardless of the result, some of the behaviour that we’ve seen by people aggrieved about any suggestion that what they've come up with is not the right way forward, will just escalate regardless until they are satisfied that they’ve got no more in the tank to give,” she said.
Senator Liddle said Australians doing it tough have been forgotten in the lead-up to the vote.
“It is a nonsense to think that on the 15th of October, everything will be fixed,” she said.
“That’s when really the hard work needs to begin but even worse, it’s not just hard work that needs to begin – there’s a rebuild to do because of the way we have gone to this referendum.”
Inquiry into where the money goes
First on the agenda, they both agree, should be an inquiry into where money that goes into the “Aboriginal industry” ends up, and measures to strengthen accountability.
Asked at the National Press Club last month about the prospect of a second referendum to enshrine constitutional recognition for Aboriginal people, Senator Price stressed the need for a process understand what kind of model would receive the required support.
“As the Coalition we have had a long-held commitment to recognition but we would want to absolutely follow the appropriate processes to ensure that those conversations have taken place right across our country involving everybody,” she said.
“That’s what needs to be done and hasn’t happened.”
The Yes and No campaigns have focused their energy on South Australia, seen by both as a must-win state, in the final push to polling day.
On the campaign trail, it’s clear that months in the spotlight have cut through for Senator Price. She fielded multiple requests for photos when The Advertiser joined her at events this week.
One of those requests was from Philip Colebatch, who crossed paths with her while she was handing out voting cards at the Marden Shopping Centre pre-poll booth.
“You’ve just been that lighthouse on the horizon for us,” he told her.
“I hope after this you go on and give the whole political scene a shake up, so good luck.”
‘She has the courage to say things’
One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson was mobbed by fans when she visited Elizabeth Shopping Centre, in Adelaide's northern suburbs, during last year’s federal election campaign.
It wasn’t like that when Senator Price visited on Thursday afternoon – but some shoppers did recognise her.
Among them was Beck, a resident of nearby Golden Grove who did not want to give her last name because she works in the public service.
Asked what she thought of Senator Price, Beck didn’t hesitate.
“She has the courage to say the things that most quiet Australians would want to say, and, as an Indigenous woman, she can say it with conviction,” she said.
That’s a theme later in the evening too, when Senator Price speaks at a No event at Gawler Greyhounds with Senator Liddle and Senator Alex Antic.
There, there were certainly no recognition issues. The crowd – about 200 mostly older voters — rose to their feet when she was introduced by Senator Antic.
She took the opportunity to reiterate the need for oversight of funding – to a chorus of applause.
“There’s been a reluctance to take those steps especially in the absence of Indigenous representation because any government that attempts to do that is called racist,” she said.
“But that now has to come to an end. So instead of constitutionally enshrining that model, we should be scrapping it altogether, getting rid of the separatism, serving Australians on the basis of need and not race.”
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