Rita Panahi: Jacinta Price must be elevated to shadow minister for Indigenous affairs

Jacinta Price has the courage to call out the harm caused by the activist class and must be elevated to shadow minister for Indigenous affairs.

Jacinta Price with her grand-aunt Tess Napaljarri Ross at Parliament House. Picture: Gary Ramage

Jacinta Price should be elevated to shadow minister for Indigenous affairs. And quickly.

I said it when she was elected to the Upper House earlier this year, and again when she delivered her powerful maiden speech last week, and again on the weekend during the Outsiders program.

There is no one within the Coalition who is better equipped to represent the interests of the Indigenous community; she has lived it, seen it and campaigned relentlessly for the genuinely voiceless and vulnerable.

And unlike the current shadow minister, she has the courage to call out the harm caused by the activist class.

Julian Leeser disqualified himself with this statement on the weekend: “I don’t want to see this (the voice) fail because the government has not provided the detail or answered necessary questions”.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price should be elevated to shadow minister for Indigenous affairs. Picture: Chloe Erlich

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton needs to pull the trigger now as the Anthony Albanese government mounts a cynical and deeply dishonest campaign designed to paint any opposition to “the voice” as inherently mean, rude, racist or motivated by misinformation.

The disingenuous smear campaign is as vacuous as it is false.

Opposing bad policy and the enshrining of toxic race politics into the constitution is not nasty, it’s necessary.

Marcia Langton. Picture: Getty Images

And no one has made that argument more strongly than the woman who has overcome so much to become a senator in the Australian parliament. One of Price’s strengths is her ability to get to the heart of complex and often emotive issues.

On the weekend she called out Indigenous academic Marcia Langton who claimed that anyone questioning the lack of detail on “the voice” was “sowing confusion” and making mischief.

Price’s scorching response was articulate and succinct.

“The Voice is being led by members of the Indigenous elite who’ve spent their lives on the gravy train built on the backs of the misery of the most marginalised and changed nothing for them,” she wrote.

“The Voice to parliament is the gravy train attempting to ingrain itself into the constitution so despite its failures and lack of accountability can never be dismantled.”

“I think it’s Labor who are confused about the detail of the Voice or whether it will be defined before or after a referendum. It’s as clear as mud and the most marginalised Indigenous Australians in remote communities haven’t a clue as to what it is or how it’s supposed to support them.”

One of the reasons why migrants love this country is that it’s truly egalitarian.

No race, religion or ethnicity is superior or entitled to privileges denied others.

We already have numerous Indigenous advisory bodies, there is no good reason to effectively create a third chamber of parliament based on race.