End ‘stolen generations stigma’ and empower Indigenous people, Price tells PM

Coalition senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price wants to overhaul native title law to ensure Indigenous communities benefit from resource riches, opening up a new avenue for bipartisanship after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pivoted to economic empowerment over the symbolism of the Voice.

Albanese is facing questions about his reconciliation agenda after he appeared to backtrack on his commitment to establish a Makarrata commission to oversee a truth-telling process – one of the three elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart supported by Labor.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has sought to reframe the discourse on Indigenous affairs.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

In a shift away from the messaging around last year’s referendum, Albanese used a speech at the Garma festival in the Northern Territory to inject energy into Indigenous affairs by tying remote communities to the government’s Future Made in Australia investment program.

Price, in an interview with this masthead before Garma, said a Peter Dutton-led government would examine changes to native title and land rights laws to foster wealth creation, mirroring the Abbott government-era focus on financial security for first Australians.

Indigenous groups in the Top End had not yielded jobs and wealth from offshore gas in their part of the country, Price said.

“I’ve spoken clearly about the need for Indigenous communities to look at the native title and land rights act and to see how we can actually enable economic development,” she said.

“Most marginalised [people] exist in regional and remote Australia, and quite often these places are largely dependent on welfare.”

Price attacked what she described as the “crabs-in-the-bucket syndrome” involving Indigenous leaders attacking one another, almost a year on from a referendum campaign in which Labor and Voice proponents accused the first-term senator of stoking division.

The 43-year-old has sought to reframe the discourse on Indigenous affairs, claiming the Indigenous establishment fostered a “separatist” approach. Her polarising stance has been fiercely attacked by most Indigenous leaders, but this masthead’s Resolve Political Monitor showed in December last year she was the third most popular Australian politician.

Price said the Australian education system and other institutions should move on from the “stigma of the stolen generations” and start treating Indigenous people the same as others.

Underscoring the political difficulty for Albanese in pursuing the Uluru statement after the 60:40 Voice defeat, Price claimed Labor had not listened to the message voters had sent the government.

Her party leader, Dutton, has also ramped up his warnings on a Makarrata commission in recent days, labelling it the “Voice 2.0″. The commission, which Labor put $5.8 million into over three years in the 2022 budget, is designed to lead a program to establish Indigenous history and “tell the truth” about colonisation to educate the public.

But despite promising to deliver policy from the Uluru statement – which recommended a Makarrata commission – on the weekend Albanese said a commission was “not what we have proposed”, creating confusion about how the government could back away from a body it had already allocated money towards.

“What we’ve proposed is Makarrata just being the idea of coming together,” he said, explaining the Indigenous meaning of the word and claiming it referred to a new mode of engagement rather than any new institution.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arrives at the Garma festival on Friday.Credit: AAP

Top Indigenous leaders Pat Anderson and Dean Parkin suggested Albanese was walking away from his commitments after Albanese was praised last year for pursuing the Voice despite its political difficulty.

Dutton said Albanese and new Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy appeared split on Makarrata. McCarthy said after Albanese’s speech that the government had not ditched its promise to establish a Makarrata truth commission.

“You can understand why she is confused about the prime minister’s position as well,” he said.

“If the prime minister didn’t hear the voice of the Australian people at the time of the referendum, when they voted, then I think the people of Australia are right to send a message to the prime minister at this election that they don’t want a Makarrata commission.”

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