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A speech Senator Nampijinpa Price gave last week has been called “powerful”, “transformational”, and a “turning point” for Australia.

On Thursday, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price gave a speech that has reverberated around the nation.

Her hour-long oration before the National Press Club dealt a devastating blow to the logic underpinning the Voice, set to be voted on by the Australian public on Saturday 14 October.

Senator Price addressed Indigenous family violence; she spoke of the vitriol and threats she has received for speaking the truth on Aboriginal issues; and she called for an inquiry into the funding already being provided to Indigenous bodies.

Quick-Thinking Answers From Senator Nampijinpa Price

What gained the most attention, however, were the quick-thinking answers Senator Price gave during the question time following her speech.

Asked whether she supports blood tests for Indigenous heritage, Senator Price said, “I certainly don’t agree with blood tests.”

Then she cut to the real issue: “There are many box-tickers out there that are taking away opportunities from our most needed… If we actually chose to serve Australians on the basis of need and not race, those opportunists would disappear quick smart.”

The room erupted in applause.

Responding to the accusation of inconsistency in that she opposes the Voice’s racial division while accepting it in her role as Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Senator Price replied:

The Voice is contradictory in itself because it’s supposed to be about closing the gap but if you constitutionally enshrine it, that’s suggesting the gap will exist in perpetuity, and that is not what we want.

The same can be said for the portfolio that I hold. I would hope to see that one day in our country we wouldn’t require such a portfolio, because if we don’t have that portfolio it means that everybody is taking advantage of the same opportunities that our country has to offer.

Senator Nampijinpa Price on Colonisation

Senator Price’s most noteworthy response came when left-wing rag The Guardian’s Josh Butler asked, “Do you believe the history of colonisation continues to have an impact on some Indigenous Australians?”

“Ah, no,” Senator Price snapped back, before pausing to nuance her reply.

“A positive impact? Absolutely,” she affirmed.

“I mean, now we’ve got running water, we’ve got readily available food.”

She went on to paint a portrait of the life of her grandfather who “first saw white fellas in his early adolescence” — an encounter that changed the trajectory of his family’s fortunes for the better.

Summarising how colonisation has helped Aboriginal people, she said, “Many of us have the same opportunities as all other Australians in this country. We certainly have probably one of the greatest systems around the world… that is why migrants flock to Australia.”

Then came some of the most profound words spoken by Senator Price that day.

“If we keep telling Aboriginal people that they are victims, we are effectively removing their agency, and giving them the expectation that someone else is responsible for their lives. That is the worst possible thing you can do to any human being: to tell them they are a victim without agency. And that’s what I refuse to do.”

Again, her words were met with rapturous applause.

Senator Nampijinpa Price on Intergenerational Trauma

Butler was joined by Press Club President David Crowe in insisting that Aboriginal suffering today is the result of intergenerational trauma stemming back to colonisation.

“Would you accept that there have been generations of trauma as a result of that history?” Crowe angled.

Again, Senator Price sliced through the flawed claim like a hot knife through butter.

“Well I guess that would mean that those of us whose ancestors were dispossessed of their own country and brought here in chains as convicts are also suffering from intergenerational trauma, so I should be doubly suffering from intergenerational trauma,” she quipped, referring to her mixed Warlpiri-Celtic heritage.

This time, applause was preceded by an outburst of laughter.

Responses to Senator Nampijinpa Price’s Speech

Predictably, reactions to Senator Price’s remarks have been varied.

Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney condemned her comments as “offensive”.

Ever supportive of the Yes campaign, the taxpayer-funded ABC dedicated an entire article to Burney’s hurt feelings about the speech.

Also clearly upset by the interchange was activist-journo Josh Butler, who took to his column at The Guardian to accuse Senator Price of “misrepresent[ing] key aspects of the referendum” and “creat[ing] confusion over key sections of her portfolio”.

By contrast, National Party leader David Littleproud, who was also present for the speech, described it as one of the most powerful he had ever heard.

John Roskam, a senior fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, also present, called it “a potentially transformational moment in Australian politics”.

Lyle Shelton, National Director of the Family First Party, said Senator Price’s speech was a “comprehensive take-down of left-wing identity politics” and “probably the most important political speech of our generation”. He added:

Nampijinpa Price schooled the woke and smug Canberra Press Gallery in common sense that laid bare the bankruptcy of their cultural Marxist identity politics. She showed Australia’s crop of timid conservative politicians what is possible with courage and conviction.

Sky News host Andrew Bolt labelled Senator Price’s speech variously “a moment of hope”, “a turning point in this debate”, and possibly “a critical turning point in race relations in this country”.

Takeaways From Senator Nampijinpa Price’s Speech

Senator Price’s speech provides Australians with at least three important takeaways.

First, as highlighted by Lyle Shelton, courage and conviction win every day of the week. On Thursday, Senator Price was a model of bravery in the face of a monolithic ideology that has browbeaten too many of our nation’s leaders into silence.

Speaking up for the truth will invite hatred, as Senator Price is learning, but it will also inspire a new generation — and some of the old guard — to push back on tired woke dogma with fresh ideas and new hope for the future.

Second, the questions prompted by her speech laid bare just how much ideological rot now infects Australia’s intellectual and media class.

Critical race theory (CRT), imported wholesale from the United States, is now an axiomatic fact for Australia’s hoity-toity. CRT holds that people can no longer be encountered as individuals, but must always be seen as representatives of an oppressor or oppressed class.

Pushing back the madness requires first understanding it. Only when enough Australians behold the vice grip Marxism has on the minds of our ruling class will we have the tools we need to overcome it.

Third, Indigenous people need agency, not condescension.

The issues facing Indigenous people in rural and remote Australia are acute and in desperate need of attention. But to blame them on events 235 years ago is to guarantee not seeing the present-day causes of those woes, and therefore address those causes.

As Senator Price hinted in her reply, it is patronising to paint Indigenous people as uniquely susceptible to intergeneration trauma. Also known as the “soft bigotry of low expectations”, this ideology is deeply destructive to people who need incentives to succeed, not more reasons to fail.

In her speech, Senator Price has shown all Australians a better way. Let’s hope the nation is listening.

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