Jacinta Price slams ‘lack of action’ by federal government one year after voice defeat

A NT senator has taken a stand one year after a referendum to give Indigenous Australians a Voice failed, slamming the federal government’s ‘lack of action’. Find out more.

CLP NT senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price speaking with Nationals leader David Littleproud in Alice Springs. Picture: Gera Kazakov

The shadow minister for Indigenous Australians has laid into the federal government’s “lack of action” on the one-year anniversary of a referendum which sought to give Indigenous Australians a Voice.

NT Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, with federal Nationals leader David Littleproud, addressed the media in Alice Springs on Monday, October 14 – exactly one year after the Voice to Parliament referendum failed to get a majority vote.

Ms Price said the 12 months since the referendum had been “disappointing” and criticised the “lack of action” by the federal government to “improve the lives of the most marginalised Indigenous Australians”.

CLP NT senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price speaking with Nationals leader David Littleproud at Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Monday, October 14, 2024. Picture: Gera Kazakov

“I don’t see any constructive way forward,” she said

“All we want is for marginalised Indigenous Australians to have the same opportunities.

“We want to move forward and progress forward for the benefit of marginalised Indigenous Australians whose first language is not English, who are forgotten in remote communities, and who the Albanese government continues to ignore.”

Ms Price, a frequent critic of the federal government's policies towards Indigenous Australians – and who recently slammed the new national commission for Indigenous kids – said remote communities were unheard in Australia.

Nationals leader David Littleproud speaking with CLP NT senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Picture: Gera Kazakov

“There is a lot of fear mongering that occurs in remote communities, and that is why people are reluctant to come forward and to be heard,” she said.

Mr Littleproud said he wasn’t in Alice Springs to do a “victory lap” after the referendum failed.

“We’ve had a lost 12 months where a government has been sulking and has wiped their hands of the real reality of how we can change these lives,” he said.

“If we do that properly, there won’t be a gap, we know, to the postcode where the gap is, and this is where you need to get to the local level.

“It’s now time to respect the nation’s view, to get out of the way and to let those that want to get on with the real, practical measures that will change lives here in Central Australia, to do it.”