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]

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 next 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 created in 2019, stating there is already "enough parliamentary representation of Indigenous people". She additionally argued that the creation of the body implied that Aboriginals are a "separate entity to the rest of Australia".^[14]

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

"The last thing they need is some know-it-all whitefella to come in paternalistic, as has been happening for 200 years, and say, ‘Listen, you’re just children and we’ll just fix it all for you.’ ”

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]

As such, she has 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 Aboriginals, claiming that, "from the beginning[,] authorities were reluctant to incarcerate, or punish in any way, Indigenous Australians for violent crimes against other Aboriginal Australians." Price cited the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody of 1987, which she describes as having found no evidence of the "widely held belief that proportionately more Aboriginal Australians die in custody than non-Indigenous Australians".^[18]

Australia Day debate[]

Additionally, Price has criticised the push to change the date of Australia Day in 2021 as “virtue-signalling”.^[19] Many Aboriginal activists have criticized the holiday and argued that its date (26 January), which commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, symbolizes the adverse impacts of British settlement on Australia's Indigenous peoples.^[20] In contrast, Price describes Australia Day as a "magical day"^[21] and pushed back against claims that the day commemorates the subjugation of Aboriginals.^[22]

In 2018, Price supported the "Save Australia Day" campaign promoted by Mark Latham.^[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 of Aboriginal descent, 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 another mixed race 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.

Personal life[]

Marriage and family[]

Price has three sons from a first marriage. She experienced domestic violence in a later relationship, then married Colin Lillie, a singer born in Scotland.^[28] Her folk/soul/country album Dry River launched in 2013.^[29] Price is a regular guest on Sky News Australia.

Defamation battles[]

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.^[30]

In 2020, Price was sued for defamation by former Northern Territory Senator Nova Peris, a Labor Party member of Aboriginal descent. Price had accused Peris of protecting sexual predators while on the television program Studio 10.^[31] According to transcripts provided by the Supreme Court of Victoria, Price stated that:^[32]

"We need to start condemning the perpetrators and we know within Aboriginal Australia there are powerful men who have made it to powerful positions who have never been condemned... Nova Peris has been involved with these particular people."

Price would later apologize to Peris for these remarks.^[33]

Work at the Centre for Independent Studies[]

Outside of elected office, Price serves as Indigenous program director for the Centre for Independent Studies, a libertarian think tank based in Sydney.^[34] 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.^[35]

References[]

External links[]

• Jacinta Nampijinpa Price at Centre for Independent Studies