Election 2025: Police and private security gear up for Indigenous protests against Jacinta Nampijinpa Price

Australian Federal Police, state police and private security specialists are preparing for protests by Aboriginal opponents of senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price in WA’s Bunbury.

NT senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Picture: Gera Kazakov

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Australian Federal Police, state police and private security specialists are preparing for protests by Aboriginal opponents of senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price during her visit on Friday to the West Australian city of Bunbury.

Senator Price, the Coalition’s Indigenous affairs spokeswoman, and Ben Small, Liberal candidate for the southwest seat of Forrest, are scheduled to host a town hall-style discussion on how the voice referendum was defeated, government waste and the Coalition plan “to get Australia back on track”.

Noongar activist Robert Eggington led calls on Tuesday for fellow critics of Senator Nampijinpa Price to join him in Bunbury to protest at her arrival. He posted on a Noongar Facebook page with 1400 members: “Need your support Noongar mob. She not welcome here and we need to make that very clear.”

The page was then peppered with hateful comments about Senator Price.

Last month in Kempsey, NSW, Senator Price and Nationals MP Pat Conaghan cancelled a free “pollies in the pub” event at the West Kempsey Hotel as members of the local Indigenous Dunghutti community gathered outside to protest against Senator Price’s presence.

Senator Price said later that she did not feel safe because of aggressive and abusive behaviour of individuals.

Kempsey Shire councillor and Dunghutti woman Annette Lawrence later alleged community members were upset and confused because they had been told to stay outside the event and she was “deeply shocked and upset to hear of the racial discrimination”.

This time, the location of Senator Price’s event is not advertised. Tickets to the Bunbury event are $25 and ticketholders will be ­provided with a location once they are registered.

Jean Cecilia posted on the Noongar Facebook page: “Someone is going to have to ring up to RSVP to find out where the venue is going to be. Put on a white fella’s voice and give them a white fella’s name.”

Senator Price was a crowd favourite at rallies against the Indigenous voice to parliament nationwide in 2023 but wildly popular in WA, where she was the headline speaker at a sold-out Perth Convention Centre event.

Her Bunbury visit is considered a big boost for the Liberals in the marginal seat of Forrest about two hours by car south of Perth. Nola Marino has held Forrest for the Liberals since 2007 and Mr Small was preselected after she announced her retirement.

In a letter to Mr Small on Monday, Noongar woman Renae Isaacs-Guthridge said there was deep concern about Senator Price’s visit to the area, known as Wardandi in the Noongar language. “Senator Price’s well documented positions on matters of truth telling, voice and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander justice are considered by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ­peoples to be harmful and dismissive of lived experiences,” Ms Isaacs-Guthridge wrote in her letter to Mr Small.

“Bringing such perspectives to Wardandi Country without appropriate consultation appears to disregard local cultural protocols and community sentiment.

“Wardandi elders and custodians deserve the basic respect of being consulted on matters that directly affect our communities and cultural safety.

“When politicians use our Boodja (country) as platforms for divisive narratives without proper engagement, we feel undermined and silenced on our own country.”

Noongar people are recognised as the traditional custodians of Perth and the state’s southwest in an act of state parliament introduced by former Liberal premier Colin Barnett as part of the South West Native Title Settlement.

The acknowledgment in legislation underpins welcome to country ceremonies across six regions that are home to about 30,000 Noongar people.