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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

After a week that forced a reshuffle on the coalition front bench, Peter Dutton announced a new spokesperson for Indigenous Australians – and he needed someone who would enthusiastically support his ‘No’ position on the Voice to parliament.

His choice was Jacinta Nampijinpa Price – a first term Senator.

So who is Peter Dutton’s new pick? How did she rise so quickly through the ranks? And what does she really believe about Indigenous Affairs?

Today, chief political correspondent for The Saturday Paper Karen Middleton, on who Jacinta Nampijinpa Price really is and why the Liberal party is betting it all on her.

It’s Thursday, April 20.

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RUBY:

So Karen, the Opposition have a new spokesperson for Indigenous Australians, Peter Dutton announced that Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price will take on that role, which means that she will be the person who leads the charge now for the Liberal Party as they advocate for their ‘No’ position on the referendum. If we go to that announcement of Price’s appointment, what did she say and what did Dutton say?

KAREN:

Yes. So if we go back a couple of weeks, there was obviously a party room meeting that set the Liberal Party's position on The Voice, and that has been quite pivotal. They took a decision they were going to vote ‘No’ for the Voice as a party. The frontbench is then locked into a position which means that people on the shadow frontbench from the Liberal Party cannot go out and campaign in favour of the voice. They have to at least remain mute or back the ‘No’ campaign.

This put Julian Leeser in a very difficult position. He was the Shadow Attorney-General and Indigenous Affairs spokesperson and he had been a long time advocate for the voice and had in fact worked closely with Indigenous leaders on crafting a model that might be acceptable to constitutional conservatives. He was left in an impossible position and therefore had to resign and that threw up the need for a reshuffle. Peter Dutton had to look right across the Parliament for the Coalition he would elevate.

Archival tape -- Peter Dutton:

“Today I want to announce the following changes to the Coalition shadow Ministry. I'm absolutely delighted that Senator Jacinta Price will take on the role of Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians.”

KAREN:

He's made the decision then to elevate Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

Archival tape -- Peter Dutton:

“Many Australians know Jacinta well. She's a fighter, she's a warrior for Indigenous Australians and she's a very proud Territorian.”

KAREN:

He talked about her obvious talent and defended her early elevation and said she was the logical person to have this position.

Archival tape -- Peter Dutton:

“I'm incredibly proud of the work that she's been able to do that she continues to do, and I know that she'll do an outstanding job in leading the charge for better practical outcomes for Indigenous Australians.”

KAREN:

And he also appointed Senator Karen Liddle from South Australia to take on the specific more junior element of that portfolio, addressing family violence and child abuse. Jacinta Price said she was very humbled by the appointment.

Archival tape -- Jacinta Price:

“Thank you. I'm very humbled, very grateful that the leadership is entrusted me that Peter's entrusted me to carry out this job on behalf of Indigenous Australians.”

KAREN:

But also went straight into political mode and said that, you know, she'd been speaking to Indigenous people, particularly at around where she is based in Alice Springs, but right across the country. She says...

Archival tape -- Jacinta Price:

“They don't have any idea what the prime Minister's proposal for the 'Yes' campaign is. They don't know what the Voice is. They don't feel like they will be represented by yet another model that they see as being run by those who have had long held positions within the Aboriginal industry, if you like.”

KAREN:

She intends to prosecute very firmly the argument for ‘No’. So that is the reason that we have Jacinta Nampijinpa Price in that position now because she is the most vocal and this is what Peter Dutton wants her to focus on in the short term.

RUBY:

And as you say, Jacinta Price, she's a relatively new entry to federal politics. She was elected as a senator for the Northern Territory for the first time just last year. Can we talk a bit more then about how she got to this position and the way that she has built her political career to this point?

KAREN:

Yes, Well, she served on the Alice Springs Council for about six years and was elevated to deputy mayor. And the last part of that period, I think she was there from 2015 to 2021.

Her mother is a Warlpiri woman, Bess Price who served in the Northern Territory Parliament.

She did attempt to win a federal seat for the Coalition in 2019. She wasn't successful there. She was then preselected, kind of controversially for a Senate seat, ousting the incumbent Sam McMahon, and won the Senate seat at the 2022 election. So she's been in Parliament for less than a year. So it's a fairly meteoric rise for someone who hasn't got a lot of parliamentary experience.

She's had a lot of public experience, though, and a lot of publicity.

Archival tape -- Alan Jones:

“Well from one courageous Australian to another, the remarkable Indigenous Australian Jacinta Nampijimpa Price.”

KAREN:

She's a regular commentator on Sky News.

Archival tape -- Alan Jones:

“She contests preselection this Saturday she joins me, Jacinta thank you for your time how are things going, I know this is a bit controversial but you deserve to be there.”

Archival tape -- Jacinta Price:

“Oh thank you very much Alan.”

KAREN:

And as Sky News often does with particularly up and coming conservative commentators. It gave her quite a big platform over the 12 months or so prior to the 2022 election.

Archival tape -- Paul Murray:

“Jacinta Price looks like she will end up here as a Senator, this is a huge win for her, the Northern Territory for the country Liberal party and most importantly for the country.”

Archival tape -- Jacinta Price:

“I want to make sure that the extreme left and this woke nonsense that we're experiencing gets to be put back in its box where it belongs because it doesn't belong currently.”

KAREN:

And she's really been able to use that to build her profile. So she’s used to being in the public domain and she’s become one of the most effective communicators from the Coalition.

RUBY:

And can we speak a bit more about how Price has used the platform that she's been given and what kinds of issues, including the voice, but also beyond the voice has she been vocal about in the past Karen, what are the campaigns that she's taken on that point to the kind of spokesperson on Indigenous affairs that she's likely to be?

KAREN:

She's ideologically at the more conservative end of coalition parliamentarians., particularly to Indigenous affairs. She's been very focussed on law and order issues.

She's won support from the likes of Pauline Hanson, from the One Nation Party and she gave a very strong first speech when she got into parliament,

Archival tape -- Jacinta Price:

“I am an empowered, Warlpiri-Celtic Australian woman who did not and has never needed a paternalistic government to bestow my own empowerment upon me.”

KAREN:

and that captured a lot of attention and a lot of plaudits from people, particularly on the conservative side of politics, as being an articulation of what's wrong in Indigenous affairs from a conservative point of view.

Archival tape -- Jacinta Price:

“We need to focus on nation building, not nation burning. Our laws, as they stand now, are not racist, as some will claim, but exist because we have overcome historical racist legislation.”

KAREN:

So she really when she came into parliament. Got a lot of attention quite quickly on a range of different issues.

RUBY:

And what about on The Voice? She doesn't support it. She will campaign against it. So why? What are her reasons?

KAREN:

She doesn't support it. She thinks it's an extra layer of bureaucracy and that it won't be properly representative of local people. The Nationals in whose party room she sits, are opposed to the voice outright. The Liberals have a slightly more nuanced policy, which is that they support local and regional voice bodies being created but they don't, as far as the leader Peter Dutton is prosecuting anyway, support a national voice of any description. Now she adheres to that position. She's all for having local people being able to express themselves, but she doesn't think that a national body is going to solve the problem. And she points back to previous problems with other elected bodies, albeit bodies that were service delivery agencies, which this one would not be. But she's very strident against the voice. She thinks it would be a waste of money. It would not meet the expectations of Indigenous people and it would be racially divisive for the whole of Australia. That's her argument.

RUBY:

So, Karen, given, as you say, that Senator Price is a first term senator without much parliamentary experience, is her appointment to spokesperson for Indigenous Australians. Is this an unusual appointment and do we know much about how it was received within the Coalition?

KAREN:

Well, it is an unusual appointment in the sense that she hasn't been in Parliament even a year yet. And so it's pretty unusual to catapult someone striding to not only onto the frontbench but into the shadow cabinet. So that in itself makes it slightly controversial. The fact that she's a National and not a Liberal also makes it a bit controversial because there's a quota under the agreement between the Nationals and the Liberals in Coalition for Nationals to hold a certain number of frontbench positions based on the seats that they won at the election. This takes them over their quota. So that naturally ruffles a few feathers on the Liberal side. Hang on a minute. The Nationals have got more than they deserve.

On top of that because of the first term element. There'll be Liberals on the backbench who would be hoping that they, having served some time, would be next in line for promotion. She jumps ahead of them. So that does make this quite controversial in itself on a number of fronts.

There was some speculation around, ahead of the appointment that some of this might be taken into account and that the Opposition Leader might therefore put Senator Price in a more junior position, an assistant ministerial position, and appoint someone else to that main job in the shadow cabinet.

But he’s done that because he says she’s the best choice. She's Indigenous, she's high profile, she's articulate and she can carry the argument on this issue in particular. and that means that we can expect, I think a lot of the sort of politicking to be done by Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, at least in the first instance.

RUBY:

We’ll be back after this.

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RUBY:

Karen, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price she takes on the role of spokesperson for Indigenous Australians at a time which I think it's fair to say the Coalition is being tested and it's making the ‘No’ case in earnest. But there is some clear fracturing within the party over how that has been handled. Leeser's resignation is one sign of that. So do you think that her appointment is really this moment, this opportunity for the coalition to reset their ‘No’ case? And what do you think we're likely to see to that effect?

KAREN:

Well, I think it's a statement that Peter Dutton sees this is a very important issue for the Coalition and for him personally. And so putting her into this position is a statement in itself that they are going to prosecute this loudly and forcefully and that they do intend to campaign hard against the voice and not just passively. Now that causes a bit of tension within certainly Liberal Party ranks because there are people within the Liberal Party, Julian Leeser, who's one of the more Conservative MPs in the Liberal Party, but who is in favour of the voice, but others as well, moderates on the backbench and in fact some moderates on the frontbench who are now bound to the Liberal Party's decision making as being against the voice. They can't speak out in favour of it because they're bound by their obligations as shadow ministers. So we are seeing in her appointment a declaration that this is going to be a crucial political issue for both the Coalition and Peter Dutton for the next year or so at least. And then after that, when that is resolved, whichever way it is resolved, we'll get a better idea of exactly what the Indigenous affairs priorities will be for the Coalition. But certainly both Peter Dutton and Jacinta Price have nominated the issues of child protection, of alcohol abuse and of disintegration of community as being key issues that they want to focus on.

RUBY:

And so do you think that her appointment signals that the Coalition is moving further to the right?

KAREN:

I think it's got heavy emphasis on the more conservative end under Peter Dutton's leadership anyway, I think. We've seen that in the way he's approached the issues he's chosen to highlight. And she's certainly more at the conservative end. So I guess that's the argument and that will be the challenge overall for the Liberal Party and the Coalition is managing the divergence between that more conservative side, which is certainly the argument that's being prosecuted against the voice and the more moderate side whose members are diminished in the wake of last year's election. Who holds a different view and who have difficult choices to make about how outspoken they're prepared to be. They are at the moment choosing to be, certainly the frontbench is, relatively quiet, but we'll see how the issue progresses as to how that is managed and whether that divide within the Liberal Party can be resolved.

RUBY:

And Jacinta Price, she's become the second Indigenous person to be the Coalition's spokesperson for Indigenous Australians. But unlike her predecessor, Ken Wyatt, who was the last person to hold that title, she's in opposition, she's not in government. So understanding that, how exactly do we define her success in this role? What are the kinds of things that she needs to accomplish?

KAREN:

Well, that's a very interesting question Ruby because the measurer is different for a person in government who has their hands on the levers of power and can make policy decisions, implement things, take action. And a person who's in opposition who is really left to just scrutinise what the government is doing and perhaps present alternative ideas. So I think in the short term it's all going to be about the Voice and If that referendum succeeds, I think that puts enormous pressure on Mr. Dutton because he has staked a lot politically on this whole issue and therefore puts pressure on Senator Price. But she will then be perhaps judged by a slightly different measure later on about what she seeks to highlight in the way she seeks to prosecute those arguments once the Voice is resolved one way or another. Now, if it gets up, I'm sure she will continue to push against it and argue that it needs to do certain things and that certain other priorities have to be put ahead of it. So in some ways, that date, that referendum day is going to be a bit of a decider in terms of how we judge the opposition.

RUBY:

Yeah, because as you said earlier, this decision by Dutton, it really seems to have locked the Liberals into a position that will define them. It's clear that the voice will become the issue the Coalition campaigns around for most of this year, up until at least up until a referendum is held. But of course, it might not work out the way that they hope the ‘No’ campaign could fail. So this decision does seem to carry significant political risk for Dutton.

KAREN:

Yes, it's potentially very risky because it could turn into the issue that further divides the party room. And if the push for the more conservative position fails, then you, I guess, would expect some others in the party room to start to be thinking about whether the leader should be removed. Now, the moderates, as I said, are a few in number, and there's no alternative to Peter Dutton, no obvious alternative at the moment, and certainly nobody that would get the numbers. So his position is quite secure at this point, but it's risky in the sense that this could destabilise that position. This division over this issue could then become the flashpoint for discussion about the moderates versus the conservatives and the whole future direction of the Liberal Party.

And we've seen it struggling in the wake of last year's election. There's a lot of soul searching going on. There's suggestions of a bit of a crisis, of direction and of values, and that the Liberal Party's underlying values and beliefs are not as obvious anymore, and it's hard to tell what they stand for. So that whole question does need to be resolved by this party in opposition, having lost the election and then badly lost a by-election that has shocked them in Victoria. They have to figure all of that out and this issue may help them do that or it may prove to be a complication in that process. But either way, I suspect it will play a role in the party sorting out its future direction.

And then it depends, really what Australians do when they go to the referendum later in the year.

RUBY:

Karen, thank you so much for your time.

KAREN:

Thanks, Ruby.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today,

An unwitting comment caught on camera in China has instigated a feud between West Australian premier Mark McGowan and coalition defence spokesperson Andrew Hastie.

In conversation at a trade mission, McGowan said Hastie had quote "swallowed some sort of Cold War pill back when he was born, and he couldn’t get his mindset out of that.”

In response, Hastie said quote: “the truth is that he’s a prison guard looking for work now that the pandemic has finished”.

AND

Fox News has settled the lawsuit brought against them by Dominion Voting Systems, with Fox agreeing to hand over $787.5 million US dollars.

In the case, Dominion had alleged that Fox News promoted lies about the 2020 presidential election. Rupert Murdoch was expected to have to testify in the case… but he will not, now that a settlement has been reached.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See you tomorrow.

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