The Strange Case Of Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price
Politics is a strange game…
Now, I realise a lot of people are going to tell me that it’s not a game and that political decisions have real and profound impacts on people and calling it a game is offensive… which is why I added the word strange.
I don’t want to use the words “Canberra bubble” because it suggests that it’s confined to one city and that it could be popped at any time by a simple prick. And if that last point were true then it would have been popped a long time ago, even before Scott Morrison became PM.
Part of the trouble is that people who focus on politics all the time start to resemble elite sports people and commentators where they forget that what they’re doing is only a game and that most people have more important things to do, even if they do check the results from time to time. While the player who missed that simple shot may feel a whole range of emotions and the people who analyse his miss may wonder about his fitness as a human being, most people – apart from the diehard fans – will shrug and say, “Well it’s not like he killed someone.” In fact, if he had killed someone the commentary around it may be less critical and certainly less sustained.
So when it comes to politics, there’s a tendency from some to burrow down and look deeply into various moments, completely overlooking the fact that the electorate is made up of millions of people who all have different reasons for why they voted the way they did… even when they vote for the same party. For example, I’ve often made the point that the infamous handshake where Mark Latham aggressively shook John Howard’s hand was explained by many as the moment that lost Labor the election. It makes for a convenient narrative, but it would also have worked as a narrative that this was the moment when the young bull shows that he has more strength than the old bull who is past his used by date. The only trouble with that is that Latham lost and Howard won. Has anyone ever heard anyone say that they were going to vote for Labor until that moment but that the handshake changed their mind?
And so, this week after the Voice Referendum we return to politics because the Voice shouldn’t have been about politics but apparently Labor made it about politics because they didn’t get a consensus from the Coalition who didn’t want them to have a successful referendum. Now, I am aware that there’s so much to unpack from what happened that I think it’ll take several pages of newsprint and lots of opinion pieces and I don’t want to say anything intelligent at this point because – in the interests of balance – if I do say anything like that, then some broadcaster will find it necessary to give someone’s nonsensical conspiracy theory equal time.
Of course, one of the criticisms made of Albanese by the Opposition is that he’s been obsessed with the Voice and done nothing about the cost-of-living pressures facing ordinary Australians… I don’t know why you have to be “ordinary” to get some attention from the Coalition. Ok, they don’t like elites if they come from the inner city but most of the time the Liberal Party are telling us that we should be “aspirational” or “successful” and if we’re not, then we should just “get a better job”, as Joe Hockey once told us.
So, it does seem strange to me that the week after the Voice was defeated that the Coalition should turn their attention to pushing for a Royal Commission and an audit of spending rather than talking about the cost-of-living issues. I mean, is this an attempt to keep the Labor government talking about Indigenous issues so that the Opposition can say that they should be talking about something else? Or is it just that they feel like there are more votes to be won from Pauline Hanson’s supporters? Or is Peter Dutton just as stupid as the person who asked if Jacinta Nampijinpa Price should run for PM?
To be clear here, I’m not suggesting that person who suggested that she run for PM is stupid because I disagree with her politics; I’m suggesting that there are several problems that are functional:
- She’s a senator and would need to find a House of Representatives seat. (Not impossible but would take time.)
- She’s a National Party member, so she’d have to switch to the Liberals. (Again not impossible but it would need to worked out so that the Nationals didn’t get upset.)
- She’s a woman and she’d have problems in the Liberals with the Big Swinging Dicks club. (Although they may not be swinging as wildly now they’re in Opposition.)
- And, of course, the obvious point that nobody “runs for PM”. They become leader of their party and – if their party gets enough House of Representative seats to form government, their party appoints the PM.
Now when it comes to her performance, we have a whole strange series of alternative facts here. While it may seem like just getting media attention is the name of the game when you’re not in power, the fact remains that Pauline has managed to get media attention since last century but she’s still a long way from forming government and some of the comments Senator Price have made don’t make your average voter think that she has a strong grip on what needs to be done. Her attacks on the AEC and her comments on how great colonisation was are the sort of things that make the daily news, but they don’t make most people immediately go: “Wow, there’s a future leader!” And it begs the question, “What’s wrong with the current Liberal talent that you have to go outside the party and outside the House of Reps to find a worthy candidate?”
So in answer to the question that a newspaper recently asked, “Should Jacinta Nampijinpa Price run for PM?”, I’d merely say: I don’t know, so I’ll say no.
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
Your contribution to help with the running costs of this site will be gratefully accepted.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
27 comments
Login here Register here-
Andrew Smith -
Wayne Turner -
Graham BARROW -
New England Cocky -
corvusboreus -
corvusboreus -
Stable Genius -
Terence Mills -
Lawriejay -
andyfiftysix -
leefe -
corvusboreus -
corvusboreus -
New Bruce -
B Sullivan -
paul walter -
corvusboreus -
Michael Taylor -
A Commentator -
Michael Taylor -
Zathras -
Clakka -
corvusboreus -
Kaye Lee -
corvusboreus -
Roswell -
LambsFry Simplex.
Return to home pageMe thinks, if so many ‘No’ voters think she is so compelling and competent as a shadow Minister, then potential PM, she should be parachuted into a safe Lib or LNP lower house electorate that voted ‘No’.
One is certain that she will have their 100% support, right up until the point of potentially voting for her…..then find reasons not to…..
PS I know one of the NP/CLP candidates who threw themselves/pushed under a bus in Price’s NT Senate preselection. The same person’s offshore friends don’t understand their friend’s silence ever since, nor choice of party when pro: LGBT, indigenous, human rights and centrist, coy on the latter sentiments in Oz 🙂
Jacinta Price the self serving sell out of her own people.
Will rightfully be a nobody in 6 months time. Except when she claims she was used by Potato Head.
Jacinta if the Price is right,will sell out anyone else.
Aren’t the ones touting Jacinta for PM the ones who touted Bronwyn Bishop for PM. They were so right then, they must be right this time too.
Perhaps ”supporters” of Jezebel Price should look behind the façade and see what skullduggery she is involved in before promoting her according to the wishes of Murdoch Media Monopoly.
.
Wayne,
Sorry, couldn’t read what you wrote, on account of the previous ‘contributors’ long-winded personal biography/resume (extensively qualified in various fields of digital marketing research outcomes and managerial herd-control strategies, with a particularly narrow interest in creating arbitrary demographic groupings based on negative passive feedback research garnered from a combination of premium-rated data harvesting sources, conspiracy-theory based assumptions, and a sweeping generalistic view that all people calling for limitations to growths in both human population growth and attendant resource consumption who cite evidently manifest environmental/biodiversity concerns are in fact nothing more than ignorantly gullible racists.) having bled down into your input and obscured your expressed thoughts.
Sux when that happens.
Wayne,
Sorry, couldn’t read what you wrote, the previous ‘contributors’ long-winded personal biography/resume (extensively qualified in various fields of digital marketing research outcomes and managerial herd-control strategies, with a paricularly narrow interest in creating arbitrary demographic groupings based on negative passive feedback research garnered from a combination of premium-rated data harvesting sources and smug assumption, and a sweeping view that all people calling for limitations to growths in both population and resource consumption, citing evidently manifest environmental concerns, are nothing more than a pack of gullible racists.) bled down into your input and obscured your expressed thoughts.
Sux when that happens.
While you are all Looking Over There at Price or Dutton, Albanese has engineered the most extreme and unsustainable population drive of all time, at least two years of recession in GDP/capita, falling real wages, and the all-time worst rental crisis, with the homeless sleeping out in his own electorate. Of course, the powerful “stakeholders” are loving it.
Albanese, not Price or Dutton, is PM, with near-presidential powers, he has totally misplayed it, and made Closing the Gap that much harder. He has divided Australia, and smeared ordinary Australians all over the world as ignorant racists. Great leadership. Just to ice the cake, we are now stuck with idiot Charles and the Palace for at least another generation.
“Should Jacinta Nampijinpa Price run for PM?”
Well, to run for PM she would, as you have noted Rossleigh, first have to be nominated as leader of the Liberal Party which means she would have to give Ponderous Peter the flick.
Sounds like a plan to me !
Stable Genius
2021-22 resumption of positive net migration after COVID-19 travel restrictions lifted – a net gain of 171,000 people recorded.
I have not seen the 22/23 figures – could you enlighten me , please?
Price for PM? Not likely. She will get the same treatment she gives out and will be found to be all over the shop. The few things i have read about her ( and her Mother) make me think “UNCLE TOM” writ large.
The voice was a concept that developed over 10yrs and yet she set out to destroy it. How representative of the indijenous is she?
Treat yea, treaty now………..well that idea is fucked now………we couldnt even take a baby step let alone a treaty. Its just too short sighted to be even creditable……..she has to be described as an intellectual pigmy who joined up with machiavellian desires. She will be spat out as soon as she loses her value as a spoiler. lets face it, she has been all about being constructive with others….NOT. Just another fucking loudmouth in the crowd.
Price for PM? Will not happen. She’s filling the “useful idiot” role: the LNP will trot her out on indigenous issues and any others where she can be a figurehead, but the moment she either asks for real power, fails to produce the goods or gets in the way, she will be sacrificed loudly and publicly. That’s how conservatiive politics works. Most politics, to be fair, but somehow the RRWNJs manage to be more extreme with these things.
Lawriejay,
Voluntary migration input for 2022-23 was 195,000.
The planned number for 2023-24 is 190,000.
https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/what-we-do/migration-program-planning-levels
Last year’s refugee intake was 13,750, plus another 4,125 special plea cases from Afghanistan.
This year’s humanitarian intake quota has increased to 20,000 https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/expansion-of-refugee-program/#:~:text=Refugee%20Council%20of%20Australia%20(RCOA,20%2C000%20places%20in%202023%2D24.
Student visa numbers have increased on 2022 (>570,000 to date) but are still below 2019 (pre-Covid levels).
https://www.education.gov.au/international-education-data-and-research/student-visa-arrivals
On topic;
I would be kinda OK with Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price as our next PM, dependent on the proviso that Senator Lydia Thorpe was appointed as her 2IC.
I realise that this would be entirely unconstitutional, and I strongly suspect there would be little-to-less-than-NO positive legislative achievements, but it would probably be entertaining as phuq.
“Should Jacinta Nampijinpa Price run for PM?”
Sounds like a pretty straightforward question.
As pm, she might even improve a few peoples’ lives.
Lets have a referendum, and ask Australia.
I just heard on the ABC’s ‘The Drum’ the ignorant and utterly false assertion made by a guest declaring that indigenous people have always been here in Australia whilst he repeatedly divided the Australian population into the categories of indigenous and non-indigenous people. All so that he could argue that indigenous people deserve the privilege to advise the Parliament on laws that only affect indigenous people. Why? Presumably because it is their inherent birth right that only indigenous people are entitled to have.
There is no hope for Truth and Reconciliation as long as these ignorant falsehoods are promoted. There simply is no such thing as Indigenous Australian people. Rabbits are not indigenous to Britain. They did not originate there. They were introduced by the Normans a thousand years ago after the Conquest, though some Romans did keep rabbits during their occupation of Britannia. Dingoes are recognised as non-indigenous Australian mammals. Why not humans? In the past such ignorance was understandable and consequently forgivable, but not any more. We know things that our ancestors did not have the luxury of knowing.
We still don’t know when humans first came to Australia but we do know that they did not originate here. Thus there is no such thing as indigenous Australians. We must reconcile ourselves to that truth. Why? Because it is known truth. The meaning of the term Aborigine, as derived from latin, is original inhabitant not indigenous inhabitant, though we still do not even know if the people that we refer to as Aborigines are in fact descended from the original inhabitants. Given the coming and going of ancient peoples it is hardly likely. People did not just move in one direction and the unsuitability of Australia for producing a thriving population would have driven many of the descendants of those who had come to leave in search of better habitats. Those that did stay and were eventually isolated by the rising seas at the end of the last Ice Age remained hopelessly stuck in the Stone Age, whilst in more suitable places on the Earth fertile river systems permitted the development of sustained agriculture capable of supporting communities large enough to develop into civilisations.
So, as there is no such thing as indigenous Australian humans, why is the Parliament making laws that only affect non-existent indigenous people? Why aren’t they making laws that apply equally to everybody? Laws based on the perception of race, for which there is no support whatsoever in genetic science, are laws based on ignorance and injustice. If the referendum had been about giving a voice to the socially disadvantaged it would have received very little opposition as there isn’t a majority of the socially privileged advantaged in any democracy that could succeed in voting against the proposition. The one per-centers may have all the power and the money but they lack the numbers whenever a majority of votes is required.
Social injustice has doubtlessly been exacerbated by the perception of race, but it cannot be alleviated by maintaining the pretence and ignorance that different races exist. That can only make things worse. Look at the damage that has and will be be done by this attempt by an ignorant Prime Minister to enshrine his belief in different races into the Australian Constitution. I listened to him on Radio National’s ‘The Science Show’ which was reporting on the awarding of this year’s PM’s Prizes for Science. He thinks sixty thousand years of unchanging Stone Age ignorance of science is something to be celebrated as the world’s oldest continuous culture.
What are you grumbling about, B Sullivan? You seem awfully lost in that maze you’ve made for yourself.
It is true that the species has only in existence in our form for just over 3oo,ooo yrs. Yet watch a good nature doco and watch the complexity of group dynamics behaviours in a group of chimps on a deliberate pursuit of colobus monkeys. The team coordination, the old generals, decoys etc and sheer enjoyment at a successful hunt and sharing with others in the group, females, young etc,
So human and this has gone on for eight million years or so.
But you can’t mate with chimpanzees or them us and probably mutual.
But the different races that have evolved from our adaptations to hot cold, dry wet so son enviros, these have not been separate from each other to organically break the gap for mating purposes.
So a species can be a collections of sub species (ie race)- no binary. Categorically incorrect to confuse or conflate the two. Both are valid categories.
Darwinism, not social Darwinism. Indigenes love their homes including in the existential sense, as much as we, and oddly, will contest with settlers for retention.
How would we feel if the yanks just invaded and we were in the same plight as other indigenes Palestinians, say?
There is some thing more to this situation than just being sidetracked by language. The issue goes to the very core to what being human is about. The transaction is about dispossessed indigenes and dispossessing Europeans and the time has come to pay some back. Not the incoherent divisive hogwash disseminated by empathy less oafs like the Opposition Leader.
Not robots…
New Bruce,
Probably a more suitable subject for a plebiscite than a referendum.
We could have an extensive preparatory marketing campaign to greater inform voter choice.
The YES camp could bleat that those voting ‘NO’ are nought but a bunch of racist sexists who just want to hurt poor Jacinta’s feelings on account of her gender and skin tone,
Whilst the NO camp could bray that there is no solid info to disprove the trepidation that Senator Price might actually be a rapaciously vampiric shapeshifter who, if tacitly enabled, will steal your children from their beds in order to suck out all their blood.
On a practical note I would suggest that, given numerous complaints about the complicated format of the previous Voice referendum (legibly writing YES or NO in pencil can be a challenging excercise), voters be permitted to colour in the box of their preferred choice using a crayon.
Paul, my favourite is when someone says if Aborigines were smart they would have invented the wheel.
“What would they use it for?” I ask.
Them: “For carts, such as in horse and cart.”
Me: “There weren’t any horses in Australia.” 🤦🏻♂️
I’ve previously posted my interest in indigenous culture and my general orientation.
But I also think it’s a slippery slope when white people start telling indigenous people the political views they should hold.
Indigenous people should be encouraged, and have the confidence to participate in all points on the political spectrum
AC, I may have mentioned this a thousand times on this site, but here comes number 1,001:
From a cartoon in a uni text book on racism… some govt officials pointing to a group of people, “Let’s go and ask these white people what’s best for Aborigines.”
The American natives also didn’t have the wheel – nor the Inuit (for obvious reasons). However the Incas (who knew what wheels were) didn’t use them despite building roads.
Also, the Canadian Constitution recognises First Nations people as those being Indigenous who are not Metis or Inuit but Aboriginal people (the legal term for Indigenous peoples) includes the Metis or Inuit.
If B Sullivan wants to really put the disingenuous boot in should also mention the burning of forests, the extinction of megafauna and the reported cannibalism that seem to be mentioned when denigrating a specific group.
B Sullivan,
People can be loose with their descriptors, that’s why we get obscuring semantics games .. They, who sometimes refer to themselves as ‘Blaks’ amongst other tags, are now referred to as First Nations People.
Try this on.
(Ta, corvusboreaus)
I just had an idea for an interim role for Senator Nampijinpa Price:
Since the formerly Hon PM Anthony Abbott anointed himself as the multi-minister best qualified to speak on behalf of Aboriginal females, why couldn’t Jacinta be appointed shadow spokesperson for the opinions of pale males?
Sounds coalitiousy sensible to me.
cb,
She has been filling that role for years. When asked about her voting record on Alice Springs Council, she said “I guess my values are very similar to the ‘old white fellas’!”
KL,
Salutations,
Hope you and yours are all well.
I’m doing OK, trying to savour the small wins with epicurean relish and bear the big losses with stoic resolve.
May the flannel of your pygamas never lose it’s fluffy fleece.
Corvus out.
Kaye, thrilled to see you. What a welcome sight you are.
I hope you’ve been well.
Yes, Kaye Lee, it seems to be a cultural issue. The Indigenes seem not to be able to draw we primitives out of our sloth. Perhaps we are too Neanderthal.. Some, even some at genius level, have even been contaminated by retro WASP culture.
Truthfully, I would trust an angry taipan before Price and Mundane.