Jacinta Price points out key ‘failures’ in Australia’s Indigenous affairs policies

Senator Jacinta Prince has fired up over Australia’s handling of Indigenous affairs, taking aim at the Welcome to Country and men in leadership who have a history of domestic violence. Listen to the podcast.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says Australia has made a multi-billion dollar industry from Indigenous affairs, which is largely failing due to a lack of direction, accountability, and a lower level of expectation.

The Liberal senator told this masthead, and Gary Jubelin in the I Catch Killers podcast, that she would like to take a “fine tooth comb” to Indigenous affairs policies and identify key “failures” where the government is haemorrhaging money.

She also said not all Indigenous people are equally marginalised, Welcome to Country is often a form of “a virtue signalling task for some, and a throwaway task for others”, and one of the reasons she got into politics was because she saw the Aboriginal industry “flourish, but without anything significant, without any change occurring on the ground”.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price wants to take a ‘fine tooth comb’ to Indigenous affairs policies. Picture: Brett Phibbs / PhibbsVisuals

An example she used was that Aboriginal men with a history of domestic violence are allowed to sit as chair people for significant organisations, which wouldn’t be tolerated outside of Indigenous affairs.

“Do we stipulate more prominently that shouldn’t be allowed?” she asked. “That people who have had significant, violent criminal histories should, in fact, be exempt from having the opportunity to sit in leadership positions?”

Ms Price explained the amount of money being spent on Indigenous affairs back in 2017 was about $33bn. She didn’t have a figure for what was being spent today, but said the costs are normally associated with providing measures to support and advance Indigenous Australians.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price worries about the treatment of the Welcome to Country.

Jacinta Price grew up in Alice Springs. Picture: Supplied

One of the issues, she said, is the target market is too broadly focused on all Indigenous people. There is no focus on whose lives specifically are being improved.

“And so an industry has developed out of that – I mean, there are many livelihoods that have been created in that space, there are many organisations that are tasked with improving the lives of marginalised Indigenous Australians that, in my view, many of which are failing,” she said.

“If I want to take a more honest approach to this matter, I will be targeted because there are those who are going to feel threatened by the fact that I’m pointing out that it’s not just governments that are failing.”

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says ‘guilt politics’ has no place in schools when Aboriginal history is taught. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

She also took aim at the way Aboriginal history is taught in schools, saying children should learn all aspects of history in order to understand and appreciate how far Australia has come, rather than teaching “guilt politics”.

“Yes, Hitler was a bastard, but we learn from the horrors of what occurred there so as not to repeat it. We don’t hold all Germans accountable for what occurred in the world wars, so we shouldn’t subject our kids these days to guilt politics in that regard,” she said.

“A little white kid born in this country shouldn’t have to feel guilty for being a white kid in this country.”

*Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is on the I Catch Killers podcast from Sunday morning.

Originally published as Jacinta Price points out key ‘failures’ in Australia’s Indigenous affairs policies