Indigenous Voice will ‘fracture’ Australia along race lines: Price

‘No’ campaigner Jacinta Price accuses Voice supporters of listening to activists instead of Indigenous people, as she declined to say if she will support constitutional recognition in another form.

Supporters of the Voice to Parliament have been accused of listening to the “Qantas-sponsored leaders of the activist industry” instead of Indigenous people experiencing disadvantage, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has warned.

In a fiery speech at the National Press Club on Thursday, Ms Price took aim at the yes campaign for what she believed was a failure to listen to Aboriginal Australians in remote communities.

But Ms Price declined to answer if she would support constitutional recognition in another form, such as has been proposed by Opposition leader Peter Dutton with a second referendum on the issue.

Instead she said she supported recognition, and was against the Voice, but did not respond when asked if she specifically would like to see that recognition enshrined in the constitution.

Ms Price said Aboriginal people did not need a “Voice to Canberra,” they needed “accountability”.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price addresses the National Press Club in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

“It is incumbent upon us as Members of Parliament to determine what actions are required in order to fix the current structures and apply a greater accountability,” she said.

‘REVOLTING’ ABUSE

Ms Price revealed she had been subjected to “revolting” abuse during the referendum campaign, including vile Voice messages sent to her personal mobile which was shared online.

“I am no stranger to horrible, horrible abuse and what I will say is that the Prime Minister needs to take responsibility for the division we are now confronted with,” she said.

“He chose to take this path to divide our nation, to not undergo the appropriate processes, to involve the Australian people in constitutional conventions and to bring everybody along for the ride.

“I condemn all kinds of horrible behaviour that has come out as a result of this.”

Asked if she would condemn the racist comments of prominent no campaigner Gary Johns, who has said Aboriginal people should have to undergo blood tests to receive welfare and accused Indigenous people of “blackface,” Ms Price said she did not agree with blood tests.

Ms Price said she believed the Voice was “contradictory” in itself because it was about Closing the Gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, which if successful would mean the advisory body would need to exist in “perpetuity”.

Barnaby Joyce MP, Senator Michaelia Cash and Senator Bridget McKenzie during Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price's address to the National Press Club in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

NO ANSWER ON SECOND REFERENDUM

She said in the future she would hope Australia would not need her portfolio, as a representative for Indigenous people, as that meant everyone was able to take advantage of the same opportunities regardless of their background.

Repeatedly asked if she would back the second referendum on symbolic constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people proposed by Mr Dutton, Ms Price declined to outright back the idea.

She said her position would be contingent on consultation with Australians and constitutional conventions.

VOICE WILL ‘FRACTURE’ AUSTRALIA

Opening her address, Ms Price said segmenting Australia into “us” and “them” through a constitutionally-enshrined Indigenous Voice to Parliament would “fracture” the country along race.

She believed the Voice proposal was built upon multiple “lies”.

“The first lie that underpins the Voice is that Indigenous Australians do not have a Voice,” she said.

“I am one of 11 Indigenous voices currently in parliament and I will not accept the lie, the rationalisation of many Indigenous voices of the yes campaign who suggest our democratically elected voices are redundant because we belong to political parties.”

Reflecting on her priorities in parliament, Ms Price said she would not be prevented from telling the “truth” about rates of violence and its origins in Indigenous Australian communities.

‘I’VE BEEN TOLD I’M A SELLOUT’

“I have been told that by speaking out, by amplifying the voices of the victims and the vulnerable, by bringing attention to the rampant abuse and neglect that I am repeating the words of the oppressor,” she said.

“I have been told I’m a sellout.”

“I’ve been racially abused, vilified, name-called and threatened with violence.”

Ms Price said she had suffered this treatment because she wanted to stop children from being abused, and stop men and women from being killed.

Warren Mundine arrives for Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price address to the National Press Club in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

“There is no genuine appetite in Canberra to tell the truth or to hear the truth,” she said.

“This could not be any clearer than in this government’s referendum on the Voice.”

Ms Price said another “lie” in the Voice debate, was that the proposal was an invitation from all Indigenous people to their fellow Australians.

“To say this has come from First Nations people, plays into backwards, neo-colonial, racial stereotyping, suggesting that all Aboriginal people think the same, feel the same, and want for the same things,” she said.

The third “lie” underpinning the Voice, Ms Price warned, was that it was “simply just an advisory body”.

“Nowhere in the question that will be put to Australians or in the proposed chapter on which we are voting do the words ‘advice’ advise or advisory appear,” she said.

Ms Price said the fourth “lie” was the fact proponents of the Voice do not know what the Voice will actually do.

“They don’t know who will be on the Voice,” she said.

“They don’t know what it will choose to make representations on, they don’t know how the High Court will interpret the proposed new chapter.”

Ms Price said assertions the Voice would only care about issues like health or education were “misleading conjecture”.

“The government have repeatedly promised equal representation, gender balance, and youth representation,” she said.

“But these are not promises the government can make.

“The reality is that they don’t know what form the Voice may make in the future.”

However the constitutional amendment does give the parliament the power to make laws about the form and function of the Voice, meaning the government of the day could control who was on it, and the format of the body.

Originally published as Indigenous Voice will ‘fracture’ Australia along race lines: Price