Calling out “useless virtue signalling”, Price called for “real solutions” to the high rates of domestic violence and alcoholism among Indigenous communities in the NT and rejected “false narratives that suggest racism is the cause”.
Price is one of 11 Indigenous Australians in the 47th Parliament, the most diverse in the country’s history. His views could be influential within the Coalition party room, where there is no consensus position. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has not ruled out bipartisanship on constitutional recognition but wants Labor to provide details on the proposal, while Liberal MP Andrew Bragg has long backed a constitutionally enshrined voice .
Price’s speech was in stark contrast to Indigenous working women, Lingiari MP Marion Scrymgour and Senator Jana Stewart, who also made their first speeches in parliament on Wednesday.
Scrymgour, who was a facilitator in the dialogues that led to the Uluru Declaration, said: “I know full well that this initiative is not mere symbolism. I am proud to be part of a government that should have done something on this front a long time ago.”
Lingiari MP Marion Scrymgour makes her first speech. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
In the lower house, Scrymgour, whose electorate covers 99 per cent of the NT, used her speech to point out the paradox of joining a layer of government that once regulated her parents’ lives in through the Aboriginal Ordinance Act.
“My pride in beginning my formal role in this House of Representatives is tinged with sadness. I am essentially part of the same government that appointed my parents as wards of the State, the ‘State’ being the Commonwealth of ‘Australia,’ he said.
Stewart in his speech spoke of the historic genocide of Indigenous Australians and that “the weight of shame and collective guilt we carry because of our history” is a barrier to Australia’s success as a nation rich and multicultural.
“We bring this because we have failed to reconcile and we have failed to reconcile, because we have skipped a critical step as a nation: telling the truth,” he said.
Earlier on Wednesday, One Nation senator Pauline Hanson left the chamber as Senate President Sue Lines gave the country’s official recognition recognizing the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples as traditional custodians of the Canberra area .
Hanson chimed in, yelling, “No, I won’t and never will.” Then he left the room.
He later said he would reject the recognition, which occurs at the start of each session day, from “this point”, calling it “divisive” and saying he felt Australia belonged to both ” like any other Australian.” , indigenous or not”.
He also opposed a motion to raise the indigenous flag in the Senate chamber, saying that “I will never respect [that flag]. I find this flag divisive.”
Victorian Greens senator Lidia Thorpe, a DjabWurrung, Gunnai and Gunditjmara woman, blasted Hanson’s decision to reject Country’s recognition as “disrespectful”, tweeting that “racism has reared its ugly head”.
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