A tale of two brave potential PMs, and one juvenile poseur
If we are honest, right now in this modern era there are some things that only a woman of colour can say. On key Indigenous and gender issues, two strong women are standing tall.
If we are honest, right now in this modern era there are some things that only a woman can say. And there are other things that only a woman of colour can say. It’s fortunate, then, that in Australia we have Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Equally lucky, the British have a woman called Kemi Badenoch.
Both women are tremendously frank about challenging the status quo on different, yet similarly complex, issues.
These are matters that most people refuse to question. Many favour the status quo for ideological reasons. Some have vested interests. Others are too scared to speak up for fear of Twitter storms and losing their jobs.
Price and Badenoch, both in their early 40s, are bucking orthodoxy: Price on Indigenous issues; Badenoch on the treatment of children who suffer from gender distress. Their focus is on how our most vulnerable citizens have been sidelined by forces that preserve dangerous orthodoxies.
Badenoch is less known here. Born in London to Nigerian parents, Badenoch described herself in her maiden speech as, “to all intents and purposes, a first-generation immigrant”, who lived the “British dream” becoming an MP in 2015. A few months ago, she threw her name into the leadership for the Tory party. Badenoch didn’t last long, losing in the fourth round, but if she sticks around, she might have the right stuff to be a Tory leader one day, and even prime minister.
When Badenoch concluded her Tory leadership pitch by quoting American writer Thomas Sowell – “if you want to help people, tell them the truth; if you want to help yourself, tell them what they want to hear” – it wasn’t an empty platitude.
Badenoch, a minister for only a few years, has already walked the talk. She is among a handful of important, credible and measured voices to thoughtfully challenge the gender development practices at Tavistock clinic, which, until recently was regarded as a world’s best practice in treating children who questioned their gender.
Late last month, Tavistock was ordered to close following an independent review. Paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass found that the clinic in north London was hurrying young children into hormone-blocking treatments.
“We cannot be sure about the impact of stopping these hormone surges on psychosexual and gender maturation. To date, there has been very limited research on the short, medium or longer-term impact of puberty blockers on neurocognitive development,” wrote Cass.
Writing in The Times a few days later, Badenoch, who became Equalities Minister in 2020, exposed the medical, bureaucratic, and activist obstacles that she faced simply by wanting to listen to many different perspectives around the complex issue of treating children who experience gender distress.
When Badenoch wanted to listen to Keira Bell, a young woman who gave harrowing evidence about being given puberty blockers at 16, and having her breasts cut off at 20, civil servants in her department told Badenoch it would be “inappropriate to speak to Bell”.
She faced selective leaks by her department when she spoke with whistleblowers from Tavistock, and other concerned citizens.
There is, she says, a small minority of activists within her bureaucracy who “are the tail wagging the dog” while more senior department heads are too scared to challenge their own staff.
“A minister asking tricky questions can be stopped in their tracks by accusations of stoking ‘culture wars’,” she writes.
Badenoch said she was writing, “not to take credit … but to give an insight into the numerous obstacles that slow down even the most determined minister from finding out the truth and making the right decisions”.
Badenoch’s experience points to the real-life dangers when what she calls “groupthink” takes hold. It happens when zealots, vested interests and cowards coalesce to control the accepted wisdom.
Sensibly, Badenoch refuses to call any of her efforts to expose what was happening at Tavistock part of a “war on woke” because “woke” trivialises complex issues. What happened there “is far, far more serious than that,” she told GB News last week.
The Cass review found “very limited research” about the longer-term impact of puberty blockers. That alone should have state and federal health ministers demanding reviews in Australia. Except that we lack ministers of Badenoch’s calibre, people with conviction about finding the truth, and making decisions based on truth.
There is one woman with these qualities. Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is no follower of stubborn, entrenched orthodoxy. That orthodoxy ignores shocking levels of violence that Indigenous people inflict on one another, much of it, but not all of it, men against women and children. Condemning a racist remark at a footy game attracts more attention than the tragic death of an Indigenous child by an Indigenous parent. Exploring violence within Indigenous communities raises challenging cultural questions.
Price’s maiden speech 10 days ago was one for the ages. She traversed complex issues by searching for truth, not succumbing to platitudes. Price denounced pointless virtue-signalling, and demanded solutions – real change – to save Australia’s most vulnerable citizens from the nightmare of violence and terror.
She mentioned 30-year-old mother of three Alena Lamina Kukla and her two-month-old baby who were both shot dead that week within their community. Another woman featured in Price’s maiden speech was also killed in another sickening episode of domestic violence that same week.
Price said locals have become desensitised to the horror. She took aim at large sections of the media that ignore the culture of violence within Indigenous communities, the deaths in jail of Indigenous people at the hands of other Indigenous people, and the causes of disproportionately high levels of incarceration: poor parenting, child abuse and neglect, poor school attendance, and unemployment.
Price took aim at false narratives and ideology that favour symbolism over outcomes. One example is the reinvention of Indigenous culture where “Welcome to Country” or “Recognition of Country” have been transformed into standard ritual practice to precede every event, from a board meeting to a kindergarten gathering to a plane landing on the tarmac.
“We spend days and weeks each year recognising Aboriginal Australia in many ways, in symbolic gestures that fail to push the needle one micromillimetre toward improving the lives of the most marginalised in any genuine way,” she said.
On the voice to parliament, Price challenged the Prime Minister to show how the voice will deliver practical outcomes rather than further divide Australians on the basis of their race. “I personally have had more than my fill of being symbolically recognised,” she said. “It would be far more dignifying if we were recognised and respected as individuals in our own right who are not simply defined by our racial heritage but by the content of our character.”
Price is in parliament because of the content of her character. Not gender quotas. Not racial favours. She has earned her place in parliament. Her character will ensure she rises above the mediocrity of the place.
Already, on the proposal to entrench a race-based voice in the Constitution, Price is the vertebra of the parliamentary Liberal Party. She speaks with conviction, searches for answers, doesn’t hide from uncomfortable truths. Price should be shadow minister for Indigenous affairs with responsibility for leading a principled position on the voice proposal. If she had a law degree, she could replace Julian Leeser as shadow attorney-general. Alas, she was busy having her babies from the age of 17. But even without an LLB, she is doing a better job on the voice than Leeser.
Price’s fearless determination to expose the deadening orthodoxy around Indigenous affairs is not dissimilar to what Badenoch and others have done to expose the dangers of ideology when treating children with gender distress. Except that Price confronts more than 30 years of obstruction from bureaucracies, activists and pusillanimous politicians.
When Price took aim last week at the “gravy train” of Indigenous activists who have been consulted uphill and down dale about Indigenous disadvantage, with no discernible change to the terror within Indigenous communities, she was accused of being offensive. There is nothing more offensive than ignoring the culture of Indigenous violence within Indigenous communities.
When Price condemned incoming Greens senator Lidia Thorpe as juvenile for branding the Queen “a coloniser” when taking her parliamentary oath, she gave voice to many Australians. “If you want to be a protester, then this isn’t the place for it. Go ahead and join the resistance,” Price said. “We are there to be legislators for the benefit of our nation.”
Price is the very finest example of a voice for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
If she can bear to stay in parliament, it’s not hard to imagine her as prime minister.
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