The Western Australian city of Bunbury, in the conservativeLiberal stronghold of Forrest, isn’t known for its radical activism. But when the local golf club hosted the outspoken Northern Territory senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price for an LNP campaign event last week, dozens of Aboriginal peopleturned up to protest.
Charmaine Williams, a Noongar woman, was among them.
“We are trying, as a community, to build relationships with everybody that lives here,” she told Guardian Australia. “We have our ups and downs with racism, but … we are making some leeway.
“I just felt a bit disturbed about how [Price’s visit] was going to affect our community.”
It was the second time in as many months that the senator had been targeted by Aboriginal protesters.
Price, the shadow minister forIndigenous Australiansand government efficiency, has quickly climbed the ranks of the Coalition after becoming the face of the no campaign during the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum.
But the ideas that won broad support in conservative circles have made her deeply unpopular with sections of the Indigenous community who accuse her of “throwing her own people under the bus”. It has led some to question how the fractured relationship would affect her ability to manage the Indigenous affairs portfolio.
The Warlpiri-Celtic woman hasrejected callsfor Indigenous self-determination; claimed there areno ongoing negative impactsof colonisation; and promised tocut spendingon welcome to country ceremonies amid a wider audit of Indigenous expenditure.
The day after the Bunbury event, Price attended the Coalition’s official campaign launch, where the party reiterated its pledge to hold a royal commission into sexual abuse in Indigenous communities – a move that has been rejected bymore than 60 Indigenous organisationsand labelled a“political ploy that will not make one child safer”.
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Tom Calma, a key architect of the voice proposal under the Morrison government, says having Price at the helm of the Indigenous affairs portfolio would be a “disaster”.
“While she continues to make ill-informed or false generalised statements about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, nobody’s going to walk with her,” he says. “Leaders have got to walk with the community and take their community with them.
“If you haven’t even got a level of support as your starting point, the chances of being effective are very, very limited.”
Mick Gooda, a former human rights commissioner, agrees Price would face an uphill battle to rebuild trust with First Nations people.
“There’d be a bit of humble pie to be eaten along the way, but … ministers have to build relationships with their constituency,” he says.
Guardian Australia asked 16 peak Indigenous organisations whether they would be willing to work with Price if she was appointed minister for Indigenous Australians.
Two – First Nations Advocates Against Family Violence and the Healing Foundation – said they were willing to deal with whoever wins government.
Natsils, the peak Indigenous legal body, said it would work with governments that are committed to upholding “the fundamental rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities within the legal system”. Others declined to comment.
Price, for her part, has repeatedly said she is willing to debate ideas with anyone. The Coalition’s campaign headquarters did not respond to Guardian Australia’s interview request or to written questions.
“My door is always open,” Pricetold a Perth radio stationlast week.
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But in 2023, leaders of the powerful Central Land Council in the NT issued a joint statement saying Price“neither speaks for them nor listens to them”. Its chief executive has sincelaunched a defamation caseagainst the senator, which is ongoing.
More recently, a group of Aboriginal people were reportedly denied entry to a “pollies in the pub” event in Kempsey in country New South Wales.
Leetona Dungay, a Dunghutti woman, says she sought to confront Price at the event last month.
“She don’t work for her people – she condemns them,” Dungay told Guardian Australia. Dungay says she and about 20 other Aboriginal people wereturned awayand left to stage a “silent protest” on the front veranda before the event was cancelled.
Price latertold 2GBshe did not want to put her safety at risk after hearing reports that people at the venue were “aggressive and angry”. Dungay rejected this claim.
Renae Isaacs-Guthridge, a Noongar and Yamatji woman, says she objected to Price’s appearance at a campaign event for the LNP candidate Ben Small in Bunbury because, as she outlined in a letter to Small, Price had ignored cultural protocol by not speaking with the local Noongar community before her arrival.
“It’s about being respectful,” she told Guardian Australia. “She is the shadow minister for Indigenous affairs, so you’d think you would attempt to connect with local communities.”
Price went ahead with the event, saying she“would not be silenced”nor have her freedom of movement restricted.
While both major parties have been accused oflacking courage to pursue meaningful changein the portfolio – and Labor failed to mention any Indigenous policies at all during its campaign launch – there is a perception the Coalition is unwilling to consult with Indigenous groups.
The minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, has kept her own hustings activities local and low-key as the Coalition uses the failed referendum as a key point of its attack campaign.
A Labor spokesperson says the prime minister was with McCarthy in Darwin last Friday for a “significant” health and aged care announcement, and points to the creation of 3,000 remote jobs, a $4bn remote housing investment and a 10-year strategy for remote food security as examples of Labor’s “meaningful policies, which are changing lives for the better”.
Jackie Huggins, the former co-chair of the defunct National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, says the LNP’s pursuit of a royal commission into sexual abuse despite overwhelming community opposition “does ring alarm bells”.
“The government certainly needs to communicate with, and include, community in all their deliberations,” she says. “They need to be inclusive and speak to mob even though they don’t agree with each other.”