Indigenous voice to parliament: Peter Dutton gets a front-row seat at the Jacinta Price show
After flying in from distant Moree to join the voice referendum campaign trail, the Opposition Leader said his now-famous spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians was a hard act to follow.
It’s not often Peter Dutton is upstaged by a member of his own team, but this is the Jacinta show and there’s no question who they are here to see in Dubbo.
With barely a year in federal parliament under her belt, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has emerged as the star of the campaign to reject the Indigenous voice, filling pubs and halls wherever she goes.
The Opposition Leader joined her and Nationals leader David Littleproud on the hustings in central west NSW on Tuesday buoyed by opinion polls showing the No case was on track to prevail in the October 14 referendum.
The pace of the campaigning is certainly picking up. After flying in from distant Moree, Mr Dutton said his newly minted spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians was a hard act to follow.
Asked if he risked being overshadowed by appearing with her, he said: “There is every danger. We are upstaged by Jacinta Price every day, well before the campaign started.”
This swing through NSW with the Coalition leadership – the first time the trio assembled to decry the voice – started in Sydney on Monday and took in stops by Senator Price and Mr Littleproud in Lithgow, Bathurst and Orange before the bandwagon rolled into Dubbo to pick up Mr Dutton.
Spring temperatures are not all that’s on the rise. Emotions are running high, too. Senator Price had her phone number published online, sending her voicemail into meltdown from doxed calls.
After the pie-face attack on Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles, the AFP security detail has been especially on its toes. On Monday night, as she prepared to front a packed community forum in Orange, protection officers hurried Senator Price away from a photo shoot with The Australian, alarmed by the behaviour of a bystander.
Later, NSW state National Party MLC Sam Farraway complained that the meeting had to be moved at short notice to the Duntryleague Golf Club when the original venue cancelled, claiming a booking mixup.
Mr Farraway wasn’t buying it. “I don’t think we were welcome there,” he said to jeers from the 250-strong crowd. Indignant Walgett woman Kathy Thomas told the room: “How dare they … I will never set foot there again.”
At Dubbo’s Commercial Hotel on Monday, Senator Price was again the centre of attention, pushing her case that the voice will divide the nation on racial lines and won’t help close the gap for needy Indigenous people.
Mr Dutton said he was appalled by the vitriol she and her family had faced. “The abuse that has been hurled her way really has been shameful,” he said. “Those people in the Yes campaign who have sought to denigrate Jacinta for her view, I hope out of all this they can reflect on their own shortcomings and try to be better people, because I think Jacinta has struck a chord with the Australian public for that very reason.”
Senator Price, 42, takes it all in her stride – the good, the bad, the early mornings and late nights of being on the road for the referendum.
An accomplished singer and children’s TV performer prior to entering politics, she knows how to play to an audience.
Her early political education came from her mother, Bess Price, a straight-talking Walpiri woman who served as a minister in the last Country Liberal government in the NT. Her dad, David, is a white fella who taught school in Aboriginal communities.
Her mixed-race heritage is an important point of connection for Senator Price, extending to her “Scaussie” husband, Scottish-born singer-songwriter Colin Lillie. In her stump speech – which is getting quite the workout – she explained that her stand against the voice was deeply personal: “I don’t want to see my family divided by race.”
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