Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Hansard source

It's incredible how you've got answers for some questions but not others. Referring to issues talked about four hours ago, you tried to suggest that perhaps I was speaking ill of particular members of the Voice working group. I will point out the concerns that I raised around conversation about race in this debate and that those members of the Voice working group have been those who have established in public discourse the element of race quite early on in the piece and made criticisms directly of myself and my family, in fact. Which will I start with? There was a comment made by Marcia Langton criticising me. She suggested:

We have to take these matters seriously. This is too important to play nasty electoral politics about … it would be terribly unfortunate for all Australians if the debate sinks into a nasty, eugenicist, 19th century-style of debate about the superior race versus the inferior race.

She made those comments after my party room supported the 'no' position going forward. She made direct reference to race. Following that, there were also other very disparaging remarks made by Mr Pearson himself. I won't repeat those remarks. I won't dignify them, that's for sure. But there are certainly other remarks that I will refer to and, of course, you've quoted my colleague, Mr Julian Leeser, many times this evening. Of course, he's been the target of such horrible, racist remarks by Mr Pearson:

I'm wondering whether Julian expects us to wear a tattoo, identifying ourselves as Indigenous … Or that our clothes should be adorned with some kind of badge identifying us as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander?

Here's another offensive, racist remark, Marcia Langton, in reference to my own father, in fact:

The bleating about "detail" is clearly a sign of laziness among the opposition parties, but there is another tactic at play. Think George Orwell's Animal Farm and the pigs. When Andrew Bolt interviewed Price's father on Sky News, the purpose of the whining about "details" became obvious to me.

She goes on also to talk about Mr Craven:

Joining Craven is Nationals leader David Littleproud and Celtic-Walpiri Senator Jacinta Price. Price falsely claims the Voice is a "new governance structure" that will be "placed with some sort of priority over our current Westminster system". This is nonsense and as a new senator she might wish to be briefed on the committee system already established, to which a Voice would likely make reports.

Here's another remark from Marcia Langton, once again:

This is the Australia we live in; it is racist. So this could be the political making of a whole lot of people who want to help us get this over the line and create a permanent system of empowerment for Indigenous people … If we want to mute racism, we have to raise our own voices. We have to make sure that we win this campaign, because if we don't, then the racists will feel emboldened—

I wonder who she's referring to by 'racists'.

Most recently, of course, we have Jackie Huggins, who is part of Passing the Message Stick, with the chief executive of GetUp. It's been suggested that, in order to shift the narrative, they are:

… urging advocates, organisations and journalists to alienate opponents and encourage them to make racist comments so more Australians join the Yes camp, as its research shows nearly half of Indigenous Australians don't even know about the upcoming referendum.

So, yes, like many other Australians, I'm concerned about conversations around race, and understanding that this is absolutely an issue pertaining to race, but I would suggest that the derogatory comments about race certainly aren't being made by those of us who oppose this Voice and this referendum. I would like to hear from the government whether they condemn these racist remarks, remarks pertaining to myself and also to members of my family, made by members of the Voice committee.