Who is Jacinta Nampijinpa Price?

She was born in Darwin in 1981 to parents who met while working as teachers in the Tiwi Islands. Speaking to the former deputy prime minister John Anderson in a video interview in 2018, Price said of her parents: “Mum’s Warlpiri, Dad’s a white fella from Newcastle.”

Price has often described herself as a “Warlpiri-Celtic woman”.

Her mother, Bess, was also a politician. Bess Price was elected to the NT assembly between 2012 and 2016 as a member of the Country Liberal party, holding positions as minister for community services, local government and housing.

Jacinta Price said her family moved to Alice Springs when she was a toddler, where she went to school and had children – her first arriving while she was in year 12.

“The sorts of things I grew up with, understanding my culture, my family are very traditional,” told Anderson in 2018. “I performed in ceremony as a child, but also understood the parts of culture that aren’t so lovely.

“I’ve grown up knowing you have to be tough, you have to be physically tough. Women are quite ready to act out violently if need be, when you’re an Aboriginal woman. I’ve grown up seeing a lot of violence in my own family.”

She said her family members had “perpetrated violence and sexual violence”.

Price’s LinkedIn profile states she has worked as a “cross cultural consultant” with her family business, Jajirdi Consultants, offering cultural awareness training. She also worked as an executive director of a production company making “Indigenous themed Pre-School Television Shows, Stage Musicals and other projects” and as director of the Indigenous research program at the Centre for Independent Studies, a conservative thinktank, according to the profile.

Her bio also lists her as a contributor to the Australian newspaper from 2016 and a political commentator for Sky News since 2018.

In 2012 and 2014 Price uploaded songs to Triple J Unearthed, a publishing platform for independent Australian musicians. The website states that in 2013 she planned to launch her debut album, Dry River, which she described as “a mix of folk, soul and country music that pays tribute to her life growing up in Central Australia”

Being part of two cultures Warlpiri and Anglo-Celtic has always influenced the way in which her music has been created,” the website says. “As a youngster she played the violin before her focus switched to voice as part of local hip-hop outfits ‘Flava 4’ and ‘C-Mobs’.”

In one of the few disclosures on her parliamentary register of interests, Price declared “writer and performance royalties” from Apra, the performers’ rights association.

From local councillor to senator

In 2015 Price was elected to the Alice Springs local council before becoming deputy mayor in 2020. She became a regular guest on Sky News and was quoted in News Corp tabloids, drawing attention to violence and alcohol in the NT.

On her website, Price writes: “I’ve been turning the tables on the left for years.

“Almost two decades ago, I started working in the NT to bridge the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. I’ve been unafraid to call it like it is ever since.”

In 2019 she ran unsuccessfully as the CLP candidate for the NT seat of Lingiari, defeated by the veteran Labor MP Warren Snowdon 55%-45% on a two-party-preferred basis. But in 2021 she successfully beat the incumbent CLP senator Sam McMahon in a preselection battle and all but assured her election as the NT’s conservative senator.

She was comfortably elected at the poll and entered parliament in mid-2022.

In her first speech to parliament she spoke of wanting to support jobs and business in the NT, rather than “the shackles of welfare dependency”.

Price also criticised what she called “opportunistic Indigenous community politics” and “Indigenous-industry gravy-train consumers”. She described symbolic welcome to country or acknowledgments of country at public events as a “reinvention of culture”, and strongly rejected the proposed Indigenous voice, which she claimed was a “virtue-signalling agenda”.

Price also assumed positions with Fair Australia, the anti-voice campaign from Advance, where she has also operated as a spokesperson. In fact, Fair’s website says the campaign is “led by Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price”.

Previously, Price had been on the committee of Recognise a Better Way, a separate anti-voice organisation led by the Indigenous businessman and former political candidate Warren Mundine. Shortly after the announcement she was joining the body Price quit and said her efforts were better directed to the “grassroots” campaign being run by Fair.

Mundine and Price have appeared together at press conferences and public events opposing the referendum.

Price, in her first comments after being named shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, claimed the voice is “run by those who have had long-held positions within the Aboriginal industry” and that communities “will be exploited” in the referendum.

Asked about the South Australian parliament’s newly legislated voice, Price also alluded to flashpoint claims of people falsely claiming Indigenous heritage.

“I think it is utterly ridiculous that it is being left open for individuals to declare their Aboriginality,” she said.

“Another matter that is of great concern, which has been talked about by a lot of Indigenous people around the country, are those who claim to be Indigenous who aren’t necessarily Indigenous. You will see in South Australia a dramatic increase in the number of Indigenous people within its population.”