Senator Jacinta Price will now spearhead the Liberal-National Coalition’s opposition to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament after being elevated to the shadow Indigenous Minister portfolio.
Price’s accession comes amid a wider shadow cabinet reshuffle, including the retirement of former Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews, who will also vacate the shadow portfolio for Senator James Paterson.
Paterson, a vocal critic of Beijing-backed foreign interference, will also retain the shadow ministry for cyber security. While former attorney-general, Michaelia Cash, will take on the shadow attorney-general portfolio.
South Australian Indigenous Senator Kerrynne Liddle will take on the shadow child protection portfolio.
[Jacinta Price is] a former councillor, deputy mayor of Alice Springs, and a former small business owner,” Opposition Leader Peter Dutton told reporters on April 18 in a press conference attended by Liddle and Price.
“She’s always fought hard to improve the lives of Indigenous women and kids, and we’ve seen that just in recent days. She’s done an incredible amount of work to tackle tough issues, like the scourge of sexual abuse, domestic violence, and the crisis in law and order.”
Price said she was very grateful to be working with Liddle to “protect some of our most vulnerable Australians.”
“I have worked hard over many, many years to affect change in an area that I’m deeply passionate about,” she said.
Liddle said she had a history of working in areas critical to families, including employment, social housing, and education.
South Australian ‘Voice’ An Example to Learn From
Both shadow ministers were critical of South Australia’s recently passed state-level Indigenous Voice to Parliament.Indigenous individuals in each Local First Nations Voice must elect two presiding members (of differing genders). Together, all local members will sit on a State First Nations Voice.
The state-level body will have the power to present the views of Indigenous people to the “South Australian Parliament and the South Australian Government and other bodies.”
Further, at the “discretion” of the State First Nations Voice, the body can “engage with and provide advice” to other levels of government on policies that “relate to matters of interest to First Nations people.”
At the federal level, the Albanese Labor government is hoping to embed a similar proposal into the Australian Constitution, making it a near-permanent change.
Yet Senator Price said there were already loopholes in the South Australian version.
“I think it is utterly ridiculous that it has been left open for individuals to declare their Aboriginality. Just based on that, the fact that a citizen of South Australia can write a statutory declaration and claim to be Indigenous is deeply concerning,” she said.
Price warned of Australians falsely claiming to be Indigenous.
“You will see in South Australia a dramatic increase in the number of Indigenous people within its population, no doubt because of that particular model.”
“[Constituents] were not aware that this would result in the removal of the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee. So I think this government has a lot to answer for in terms of the consultation process they undertook,” she said.
