‘Betrayal’: Indigenous Senator Jacinta Price’s claim splits the nation

Leading No campaigner Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has sparked controversy after claiming colonisation had a “positive” impact on Indigenous Australians.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has sparked controversy after claiming British colonisation has had “no ongoing negative impacts” on Indigenous Australians.

The Opposition Indigenous affairs spokeswoman and leading No campaigner made the claim during an address on the Voice to Parliament at the National Press Club on Thursday.

“I’ll be honest: no,” she told a reporter when asked to clarify if Indigenous Australians were still suffering negative impacts of colonisation.

“A positive impact? Absolutely. I mean, now we’ve got running water, we’ve got readily available food. I mean everything my grandfather had when he was growing up, because he first saw whitefellas in his early adolescence, we now have,” she continued.

“Many of us have the same opportunities as all other Australians in this country.”

“If we keep telling Aboriginal people that they are victims, we are effectively removing their agency and giving them the expectation that someone else is responsible for their lives.”

The No campaigner said colonisation has had a “positive” impact. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Ms Price, a Warlpiri-Celtic woman, further denied the suggestion Indigenous Australians have suffered generations of trauma due to colonisation, arguing descendants of convicts could also claim they are suffering trauma if they followed the same assertion.

“That would mean that those of us whose ancestors were dispossessed of their own country and brought here in chains as convicts are also suffering from intergenerational trauma,” she said.

“So I should be doubly suffering,” she added, as the room broke into laughter.

The shadow minister rejected the suggestion Indigenous Australians have suffered generations of trauma due to colonisation. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

Ms Price’s comments did not go unnoticed, sparking an immediate reaction from politicians and plenty on social media, including Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney who labelled the Senator’s statement a “betrayal”.

“Those comments are offensive. It denies the experience of so many First Nations families,” Ms Burney told SBS.

“We only have to look at the Stolen Generations and the impacts that has had, in terms of ongoing trauma and pain. Her comments are a betrayal of so many people’s stories.”

In a piece for The Guardian, Indigenous affairs editor, Lorena Allam, who is descended from the Gamilaraay and Yawalaraay peopole, also condemned Ms Price’s comments.

It comes just days after it was reported there could be a number of “suspicious” possible grave sites at the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys’ Training Home in NSW.

Responding to Price’s lighthearted remark about experiencing “double suffering”, Ms Allam wrote, “I doubt the Uncles of Kinchela would have seen the joke in Price’s comment”.

“The Uncles are respected Aboriginal elders in NSW. They are the last, beloved survivors of a brutal regime that did not end until 1970. The ongoing impacts of those horrors are still being felt in their families, and hundreds of other Aboriginal families today. And, until further investigation is done on the site, the Uncles are forced to consider the possibility that little Aboriginal boys may be buried there, playmates who maybe did not make it out alive,” Ms Allam wrote.

Others slammed Ms Price’s comments on X, formerly known as Twitter, including psychologist Dr Tracy Westerman AM, who complied a list of “scientific data” on the ongoing negative impacts of colonialism.

Jacinta Price claiming "there is no ongoing negative impacts of colonialism". So, as a psychologist, and scientistic and an Aboriginal one at that; I thought I would just cut and paste some scientific data; as much as I would like to take her word for it.

Menzies, K. (2019).…

— Dr Tracy Westerman AM (@TracyWesterman) September 14, 2023

"No, there's no ongoing negative impacts of colonisation," [@JNampijinpa] said.

There are many members of the Stolen Generation alive today

Imagine denying our fellow Australians even exist

And then claiming this is just a debating pointhttps://t.co/D20yeqvOOK

— Simon Banks (@SimonBanksHB) September 14, 2023

If intergenerational trauma isn't real, if colonisation had a "positive impact", what is Jacinta Price's explanation for the very real, very measurable gaps in Indigenous health, life expectancy, and emotional wellbeing?

She wasn't pressed on this.

What explains these things?

— Rachel Withers (@rachelrwithers) September 14, 2023

The stolen land, massacres, stolen generations, intergenerational trauma and disadvantage, everything that led to structural disadvantages for Aboriginal people has been denied and turned into a joke by Jacinta Price. To literal laugher, she denied Aboriginal people’s history 😪

— Victoria Fielding (@DrVicFielding) September 14, 2023

Not everyone took issue with Ms Price’s stance.

Sky News host Andrew Bolt described her comments on colonisation as “great stuff” in a segment on Thursday night.

“Jacinta Price is demanding a new era … where we judge each other as individuals and not as members of some race or tribe.

He further hailed her “stunning” speech where she “countered the lies of the Yes campaign”.

“It’s false to say Aborigines don’t already have a Voice. Look, for instance, at the 11 people in federal parliament who identify as Aboriginal.”

“No, it’s false to say this Voice would just give advice – in fact, the word advice is nowhere in the words we’ll be voting on.”

Former leader of the United Australia Party, Craig Kelly, also expressed his support for the “brilliant” Price in a post on social media.

“Truth telling,” he wrote alongside footage of the Senator’s Press Club speech.

“No wonder the nasty feral left hate her with such passion.”

TRUTH TELLING

The brilliant Jacinta Price;

"If we keep telling Aboriginal people that they are victims, we are effectively removing their agency and giving them the expectation that someone else is responsible for their lives. That is the worst possible thing you can do any… pic.twitter.com/dsJwJzivzj

— Craig Kelly (@CKellyUAP) September 14, 2023

Ms Price, who is also a key spokesperson for anti-Voice outfit Fair Australia, also used her address to lash the “three lies” behind the upcoming Voice referendum. She said the Voice was underpinned by the false believe that Indigenous Australia don’t currently have a Voice, that all Indigenous Australia want a Voice, and the it was “just an advisory board”.

Ms Price said there was a lack of “constitutional conventions to understand from the Australian people what recognition might look like, (and how) that would provide a majority of Australia’s support toward recognition.”

“The Voice is flawed in its foundations. It is built on lies and an aggressive attempt to fracture our nation’s founding document,” she said.

While Ms Price said she was in support of a “recognition of Indigenous Australians,” her issue of the proposal was over the “unknown Voice entity” associated with an official Voice.

“What I think hasn’t happened throughout this current process is the Labor government haven’t held constitutional conventions to understand from the Australian people what recognition might look like, (and how) that would provide a majority of Australia’s support toward recognition.”

Instead, if the vote on October 14 fails, Ms Price said she would want to “fight to bring accountability in existing structures and programs”.