Jacinta Price shuts down rumours she could run for the lower house in Queensland, NSW

Senator Jacinta Price made her name as a voice for Central Australia but now there’s speculation she could have ambitions for a Scott Morrison’s Sydney seat. Read her response.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has shut down rumours she could leave the Northern Territory to run for the House of Representatives in former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s seat.

Local media Alice Springs News was among those speculating the Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians might move from the Territory, claiming she would neither confirm nor deny plans were under way for her preselection interstate.

Mr Morrison’s blue ribbon seat in the Sydney electorate of Cook will go to a by-election after his retirement from politics at the end of this month.

The Far North Queensland seat of Leichhardt, currently held by Liberal MP Warren Entsch, was also touted as a possible option thanks to its similar demographic profile to the NT.

But a spokesman for Senator Price said there was “no truth to the rumours”.

“The senator’s focus is on the Northern Territory and helping the people being failed by out-of-touch federal and Territory Labor governments,” he said.

Jacinta Price says her focus is on the Northern Territory.

Senator Price became a household name through her campaigning against the Voice to Parliament and her high profile could improve the Country Liberal Party’s chances of reclaiming a lower house seat if she were to once again run for the House of Representatives in the NT.

In the 2019 federal election Ms Price made an unsuccessful bid for the seat of Lingiari, losing to longtime Territory MP Warren Snowden, before she was elected as a senator in 2022.

Lingiari – which spans most of the Territory including Ms Price’s hometown of Alice Springs – is currently held by Labor’s Marion Scrymgour, who won with a less than one per cent majority at the 2022 election.

The ALP has held the electorate since its formation in 2001.

Labor’s Luke Gosling beat out the CLP incumbent to win Solomon in 2016, holding on to the seat with a comfortable 6.3 per cent swing towards him in 2022.