Jacinta Nampijinpa Price

Jacinta Yangapi Nampijinpa Price (born 12 May 1981) is an Australian activist and politician from the Northern Territory. Price is a member of the Country Liberal Party, a politically conservative party operating in the Northern Territory affiliated with the national Coalition. Price has served as a councillor for Alice Springs since 2015, and is currently the Deputy Mayor of Alice Springs.[1]

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price
Deputy Mayor of Alice Springs
Assumed office
29 September 2020
Personal details
Born
Jacinta Yangapi Nampijinpa Price

(1981-05-12) 12 May 1981
Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
NationalityAustralian
Political partyCountry Liberal
Relations

Born to a Anglo-Celtic father and a Warlpiri mother, Price's activism primarily focuses on issues faced by Aboriginal communities.[2] Price is known for her right-wing views on criminal justice policy, arguing that the issue of "black-on-black violence" is ignored in favour of discussions about racial discrimination against Aboriginal Australians.[3]

Price unsuccessfully stood for the Division of Lingiari at the 2019 federal election, representing the Country Liberal Party.[4][5] In June 2021, she defeated incumbent CLP Senator Sam McMahon for preselection at the 2022 federal election.[6][7][8]

Early life

Price was born on 12 May 1981 in Darwin, Northern Territory, and grew up in Alice Springs.[9][10] Her father, David Price, is of Anglo-Celtic descent and was born in Newcastle, New South Wales. Her mother, Bess Price, who served in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, is a Warlpiri woman.[11] Bess Price is a fellow member of the CLP who supported the controversial Northern Territory National Emergency Response, known as "The Intervention", of 2007 that implemented new legislation in response to the crises facing Aboriginal communities.[12]

Jacinta Price had a career in the children's television program Yamba's Playtime, where she played the best friend of the lead character Yamba the Honeyant.[13]

Political positions and activism

Aboriginal autonomy

Price generally takes a conservative view towards issues facing Aboriginal communities. Price strongly opposed the creation of the "Indigenous voice to government" body, a work in progress begun in 2019, stating there is already "enough parliamentary representation of Indigenous people". She also argued that the creation of the body implied that Aboriginal people are a "separate entity to the rest of Australia".[14]

Price criticised former Australian Labor Party leader Bill Shorten during his visit to Barunga in 2018. After Shorten condemned the removal of Aboriginal children from their families, Price accused Shorten of paternalism.[15]

Crime in Aboriginal communities

Price has criticised public interest in Indigenous deaths as overlooking those deaths perpetrated by other Indigenous people, stating that people only care about Aboriginal deaths "if there's a white perpetrator". In response to Australian "Black Lives Matter" protests aiming to shed light on police brutality and racial violence against Aboriginal Australians, Price stated "It’s not racism that is killing our people, it is the actions of our own people”.[16] She argued that Black Lives Matter activists have been “ignoring the real crisis” facing Indigenous people.[17]

Price has pushed back against claims of systemic racism in the Australian prison system against Aboriginal people, saying that the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1987-1991) found no evidence that proportionately more Aboriginal Australians die in custody than non-Indigenous Australians.[18]

Australia Day debate

In 2018, Price supported the "Save Australia Day" campaign promoted by Mark Latham.[19] In 2021 she criticised the push to change the date of Australia Day, saying that changing the date would not improve the lives of Aboriginal people.[20] The move to change the date is based on the grounds that it commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, which started the adverse impacts of British settlement on Australia's Indigenous peoples.[21] Price describes Australia Day as a "magical day"[22] and rejects claims that the day commemorates the subjugation of Aboriginal people.[23]

2019 House of Representatives election
Map of the Division of Lingiari

In 2019, Price unsuccessfully stood as the candidate of the Country Liberal Party in Lingiari against Labor incumbent Warren Snowdon.

"Coconut" controversy

In 2019, Price was embroiled in a controversy following revelations that she had shared content deemed Islamophobic on her personal Facebook page.[24] In response, George Hanna, her Greens opponent in the Lingiari who is also Aboriginal, referred to her as a "coconut". Widely considered offensive,[25] the term is used to describe individuals deemed "black on the outside, white on the inside". After Price called for Hanna's withdrawal from the race over the use of the term, she was accused of hypocrisy by Steve Hodder Watt, an Aboriginal activist, who published messages in which Price referred to him as "white".[26]

Results

Below are the final results of the 2019 federal election in the Division of Lingiari.

2019 Australian federal election: Lingiari[27]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labor Warren Snowdon 21,698 44.80 +5.04
Country Liberal Jacinta Price 17,875 36.91 +5.03
Greens George Hanna 3,991 8.24 +0.50
Independent Hamish MacFarlane 2,123 4.38 +4.38
Rise Up Australia Regina McCarthy 1,380 2.85 −0.57
United Australia Daniel Hodgson 1,367 2.82 +2.82
Total formal votes 48,434 94.95 +2.75
Informal votes 2,575 5.05 −2.75
Turnout 51,009 72.85 −1.11
Two-party-preferred result
Labor Warren Snowdon 26,863 55.46 −2.73
Country Liberal Jacinta Price 21,571 44.54 +2.73
Labor hold Swing−2.73

Price launched defamation proceedings against the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2019 in response to their coverage of her “Mind the Gap” tour; she consequently received a full public apology in April 2021.[28]

In 2020, Price was sued for defamation by Nova Peris, former federal government senator for the NT (who is also Aboriginal). Price had accused Peris of protecting sexual predators while on the television program Studio 10.[29] According to transcripts provided by the Supreme Court of Victoria, Price stated that Peris had been involved with "powerful men who have made it to powerful positions who have never been condemned".[30] Price later apologised to Peris for these remarks.[31]

Other roles

Outside of elected office, Price serves as Indigenous program director for the Centre for Independent Studies, a libertarian think tank based in Sydney.[32] Her January 2021 paper 'Worlds Apart: Remote Indigenous disadvantage in the context of wider Australia' surveyed the statistics on third-world conditions and extreme levels of violence in remote communities.[33]

Price is a regular guest on Sky News Australia.[34][35][36][37][38]

Personal life

Price has three sons from a first marriage. She experienced domestic violence in a later relationship, and is now partnered with Colin Lillie, a cook and musician born in Scotland.[39]

Her folk/soul/country album Dry River launched in 2013.[40]

References
  1. "'Perpetuating myths' about Indigenous Australians 'doing more damage' than good". Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  2. "'Not welcome': Indigenous groups criticise Jacinta Price's speaking tour". National Indigenous Television. 9 September 2019. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  3. "There is a disregard for 'black-on-black violence'". Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  4. "NT Country Liberal Party endorses Jacinta Price for seat of Lingiari next federal election". Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  5. "Lingiari, NT – The AEC Tally Room". Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  6. James, Felicity (1 June 2021). "Jacinta Price confirms CLP Senate preselection bid, rejects criticism from Sam McMahon". ABC News. Retrieved 14 June 2021.
  7. James, Felicity (26 June 2021). "Jacinta Price wins CLP preselection battle against sitting senator Sam McMahon". ABC News. Retrieved 26 June 2021.
  8. "Subscribe to The Australian | Newspaper home delivery, website, iPad, iPhone & Android apps". Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  9. Anderson, John (4 June 2018). "Conversations: Featuring Jacinta Nampijinpa Price". YouTube. Retrieved 28 June 2020.
  10. "Jacinta Nampijinpa Price". Centre for Independent Studies. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  11. Price, Jacinta (12 August 2016). "Homeland truths unspoken". The West Australian. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  12. "Defence, Discrimination and Regrets". Q&A. ABC Television. 11 April 2011. Retrieved 17 March 2013.
  13. Garrick, Matt (8 June 2021). "Centralian kids show character Yamba the Honey Ant heads to US". Centralian Advocate. Alice Springs. Retrieved 26 June 2021.
  14. "'I don't support the idea of the Voice': Price". Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  15. Langton, Marcia (25 August 2018). "The folly of Jacinta Price". The Saturday Paper. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  16. "People only care about Indigenous deaths 'if there's a white perpetrator': Jacinta Price". Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  17. Jim Wilson (20 July 2020). "Jacinta Price slams Black Lives Matter movement for failing the 'real victims'". 2GB. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  18. "Articles – The Centre for Independent Studies". www.cis.org.au. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  19. "How Jacinta Price became a darling of the (alt) right". Crikey. 31 January 2019. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  20. "Virtue signalling does nothing to make lives of indigenous Australians safer". Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  21. Narushima, Yuko (23 January 2010). "Obey the law at least, Abbott tells migrants". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  22. "Australia Day a 'magical' day for the nation: Jacinta Price". Sky News Australia. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  23. "Jacinta Price: 'People aren't celebrating the fact that Aboriginal people have suffered'". NITV. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  24. "Video slamming Islam as 'primitive' shared by NT federal election candidate". www.abc.net.au. 9 May 2019. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  25. "Why being called a coconut is the worst insult". Topics. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  26. "Liberals' Jacinta Price accused of hypocrisy after racial and anti-Islamic posts". the Guardian. 10 May 2019. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  27. Lingiari, NT, Tally Room 2019, Australian Electoral Commission.
  28. "ABC issues public apology to Jacinta Price". Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  29. "Couriermail.com.au | Subscribe to The Courier Mail for exclusive stories". www.couriermail.com.au. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  30. Cowie, Tom (29 January 2020). "Olympian and ex-senator Nova Peris sues Jacinta Price over Studio 10 debate". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  31. "Couriermail.com.au | Subscribe to The Courier Mail for exclusive stories". www.couriermail.com.au. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  32. "Research Scholars – The Centre for Independent Studies". Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  33. Price, Jacinta Nampijinpa (25 January 2021). "Worlds Apart: Remote Indigenous disadvantage in the context of wider Australia". Centre for Independent Studies. Retrieved 26 June 2021.
  34. "Commentators should 'find a different angle' from the Will Smith Oscars outburst". Sky News Australia. 3 April 2022. Retrieved 29 April 2022. ...Ms Price told Sky News host Paul Murray.
  35. "Greens pull out the 'old racism card' over China Threat: Jacinta Price". Sky News Australia. 18 April 2022. Retrieved 29 April 2022. ...Ms Price told Sky News host Paul Murray.
  36. "Women's rights could be 'undone': Jacinta Price". Sky News Australia. 22 April 2022. Retrieved 29 April 2022. ...Ms Price told Sky News host Chris Kenny.
  37. "Alice Springs $14m crime package will help the community in 'lots of different ways'". Sky News Australia. 24 April 2022. Retrieved 29 April 2022. ...she told Sky News host Paul Murray.
  38. "Gender issues need to be debated 'respectfully'". Sky News Australia. 28 April 2022. Retrieved 29 April 2022. ...she told Sky News host Chris Kenny.
  39. Garrick, Matt (9 March 2018). "Jacinta's uncomfortable truths". The Australian, Weekend Australian Magazine. Retrieved 26 June 2021.
  40. "Jacinta Price". Triple J Unearthed. 2013. Retrieved 26 June 2021.
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