Firebrand senators Jacinta Price and Lidia Thorpe to take on Aboriginal Land Councils

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has revealed she’s joining forces with a maverick colleague to call for an inquiry into Aboriginal land councils.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says environmental activists ‘have no place whatsoever’ getting involved in Territory issues. Picture: Mark Brake

Territory senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has revealed she has reached across the aisle to join forces with fellow firebrand senator Lidia Thorpe to take on Australia’s powerful Aboriginal land councils.

In a speech at the NT Cattlemen’s Association annual conference on Friday, Senator Price said she was “seeking to initiate an inquiry into land councils nationally”, to crack down on governance and accountability.

“I’m a Traditional Owner in Warlpiri country but I believe — this is me personally speaking and for many members of my family — that the Central Land Council acts as a gatekeeper and diminishes opportunities for economic development,” she told the conference.

“I mean let’s face it, land councils themselves are now part of a bureaucratic welfare structure that are dependent on the welfare of royalties, but also federal government funding and there needs to be a review to reassess.”

But in an early sign of a potential rift with the former Green turned independent, Senator Price agreed with former NTCA president Roy Chisholm that land councils were “joined at the hip with the environmental groups” and about the need to “bust that down to make development happen”.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said Senator Lidia Thorpe ‘also wants this inquiry up and running’. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

“More opportunity, more choice, needs to be provided for Traditional Owners to have control over their own land more specifically, and more opportunity to determine what they want to do without environmental activists getting involved, who have no place whatsoever, when they can fly in from places like Melbourne and tell Aboriginal people how to suck eggs,” Senator Price said.

“I’ve heard the concerns from your industry on this issue, I share those concerns as well, and it’s going to take brave people, but slowly but surely.

“The more Aboriginal women we have in parliament, I’m seeing there’s a bit of a shake up going on — you might find this surprising but senator Lidia Thorpe also wants this inquiry up and running, so that’s a start.”

Senator Price also fielded a question from Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association NT president, Sarah Cook, about how to support the senator’s message “without seeming to come across as supremacist or racist”.

“All you need to do is fight back with the truth, with evidence and with facts,” Senator Price said.

“Remove the emotion from it all because that’s the weapon that the other side have, is the emotional side, if you don’t get drawn into the nonsense you can stand back and present the facts and say ‘Look this is the truth of the situation, love it or leave it, but you can’t argue with the facts and facts don’t care for your feelings either’.”