Senator Nampijinpa Price talks to Andrew Bolt on The Bolt Report, Sky News 

7 February 2024, 7:20PM AEDT

Subjects: Productivity Commission, Racial Separation, Indigenous Child Welfare, Renewable Energy

Andrew Bolt
So, what next for Price, who is now Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians? Well, yesterday she spoke at the Canberra protests against all these wind farms, these awful wind farms being built around the country, destroying our landscape, and she joins me now. Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, thank you so much for your time. Look. Before I go to the bigger picture of politics here and your future, a question about your portfolio. The Productivity Commission has just said we aren't going to get better living standards for Aboriginal Australians until governments stop thinking that they know best and give Aboriginal people more power to make their own decisions. Is that really the answer?

Senator Nampijinpa Price
Look, we all know it's not really the answer. We all know that throwing money at a problem certainly isn't the answer. The answer is we need an audit. Which is what we've been calling for over and over again, but just to simply suggest that a group of Australians, based on their racial ethnicity, know what's best for that particular racial ethnicity, and determining that organisations who are run by majority of people with that ethnicity, be given all the money and the responsibility doesn't actually mean that it will produce any outcomes and we're seeing that over again. And we're seeing more and more, you know, if we look at the Northern Territory and what's happened with the Northern Australian Aboriginal Justice Association, they're in turmoil, and even staff have been asking for a complete overhaul of the board. It's leaving Aboriginal people without legal representation and a backlog and they're in a crisis. So the Productivity Commission can make all the suggestions they want, but it is such that we should stop treating Australians on the basis of race and start treating the need, and supporting those programs that are actually providing outcomes. And starting with an audit to determine who's doing the right thing and who isn't.

Andrew Bolt
I've got two problems. I am all in favor of small government, governments getting off people's back, but I have to say, two problems with this “magic cure.” One is for instance, and these are both issues that I feel strongly about that would make a difference, make children go to school. You don't actually need to give communities the power to make children go to school. The parents should be doing that themselves, and they don't need government fear, they can get together etcetera, and I don't see that happening enough. And on the other issue, bit related, you’ve got for instance, the First Peoples Assembly in Victoria calling for fewer children removed from families where they are, in my view, in danger, and I think the government's got to be able to say “no, they are in danger, and we're not going to pander to these calls for let's remove fewer of them.”

Senator Nampijinpa Price
Yeah, look, that is exactly right. And it's something that I've been arguing for, that I believe, well, Indigenous children are Australian citizens. They deserve to have their human rights upheld just like any other kids in this country, not treated differently because of their race. But unfortunately, we've got an ideological child protection system in place that favors this concept of country and culture, over their human right to have a dignified life. Where they have education, where their health is taken care of, where the people, the responsible adults in the household, are actually loving them and caring for them. And I don't care who's going to provide that for them, what their racial background is, but we need to move away from this idea that it can only be provided by Aboriginal families.

Andrew Bolt
There's a real theme in what you're saying, and it was what you were saying last year to this, racial separatism is just not working. It's dividing us. It's just ridiculous. But you know, here's the tension because you are the Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians, and you're talking about social welfare; that should be part of its social security portfolio. They should not be a separate, two separate things. And personally, I would love to see you be the Shadow Minister for both and eventually the Minister for both, for one because they have to be mainstreamed and two, I hate Aboriginal politicians or politicians with Aboriginal ancestry being pigeonholed as only good for Aboriginal portfolios.

Senator Nampijinpa Price
Yeah, look, that's exactly right. It occurs it occurs across the board, obviously because again, that's how the ideologues like to frame everything in terms of race. I mean, I've always said that eventually, what success would look like was there to not actually be a separate portfolio for Indigenous Australians because then everybody would be treated as equal in that regard and we would be serving Australians on the basis of need, as opposed to on race. And this is something that the politicians, some of the bureaucrats, the ideologues have not figured out yet. That that is what equality looks like. If we focus on the issue, and we focus on problem solving in that regard, as opposed to, you know, “we've got to deal with Indigenous people differently because somehow we're different now,” we are Australian citizens, and that is how we have to execute, coming about with the solutions for these tough issues.

Andrew Bolt
Well, I hope in government, you are in charge of both portfolios and merge them into one, that needs to be done. And good luck to you in that battle. But just in the immediate year ahead, right, we're starting a new year, Parliament's just started sitting for the first time this week. What do you see the big battles being just this year alone?

Senator Nampijinpa Price
Well, certainly in my portfolio, I'll be continuing to call for an inquiry, working very closely with my colleague, Senator Kerrynne Liddle, to push this government to hold that inquiry that needs to be had into the spending on Indigenous issues. We're going to continue to call for a Royal Commission into sexual abuse in Indigenous communities of Indigenous children. And of course, more broadly, you know, I was just out on the lawn with the protesters who are pushing against renewables. Farmers, land holders, those in regional Australia who want to see an end to this renewables push which is basically damaging our environment, and aside from that, not providing efficient energy, reliable energy, to the Australian people. And it's pushing up the cost-of-living crisis that we're currently living with, but, you know, there's a raft of many different issues going forward. I'd like to see more opportunity in the Northern Territory. You know, I'm absolutely behind Peter Dutton when he's calling for the Environmental Defenders Office to be defunded. We need to do away with this activism and lawfare by activists, which is across the board. You know, I'd like to see across many portfolios, in fact, do away with the waste and the ideology and a focus to be put on common-sense approaches to many different measures going forward. And also, with that, and with the renewables issue, we are certainly going to continue to push for ways forward in terms of nuclear and have those robust debates about that.

Andrew Bolt
I'm loving hearing you talk outside your portfolio; I'd hate for you to be pigeonholed away when you were such a force Last year. Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, great to talk to you again. Thank you.

Senator Nampijinpa Price
You too, Andrew. Thank you.