Flanked by Country Liberal Party Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton put boots on the ground in Alice Springs this week to declare the town crime-ridden, unsafe and ripe for an immediate federal law-and-order response.
His comments stirred angry backlash, but Arrernte Traditional Owner and CEO of Lhere Artepe Graeme Smith points to Price, not Dutton, as the real problem for the town.
“I thought it was a disgusting effort by our so-called representative downplaying the beautiful town and Arrernte country of Alice Springs when she’s a Warlpiri lady herself,” Smith told Crikey.
“Don’t talk about another person’s country.”
Price told reporters at a press conference in Alice Springs that although locals love their community, they do not feel safe and that the town therefore qualifies as a “failed state”.
“Us locals are here for a reason. We love this community, we love the landscape, we love the people in our hometown,” the senator said before calling upon territory and federal government to “listen to the locals” and recognise “needs are not being met”.
Price, a former Alice Springs councillor and deputy mayor, is a Warlpiri/Celtic woman from Yuendumu country, about 290km northwest of Alice Springs. Smith says this gives her no right to be talking for or about the Arrernte people of Mparntwe, Alice Springs.
“She’s not Arrernte, she’s not from Alice Springs. She’s from Yuendumu. She’s a Warlpiri woman getting on TV discrediting the Arrernte country of Alice Springs. We do not like that,” he said, adding that this is why they want an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
“We don’t want to be the Voice in Canberra, like Jacinta wants to be. We want a Voice in Canberra and they’re distinctly different things. Jacinta does not represent us.”
Price was elected senator for the Northern Territory in 2022 following an unsuccessful bid at the federal seat of Lingiari in 2019. Following the resignation of former opposition minister for Indigenous affairs Julian Leeser, speculation from conservative ranks has swirled about Price joining the Liberal Party and assuming the role.
Price has taken a strong stance on a No vote for a Voice, maintaining that Canberra chat is detracting from real issues on the ground. When pressed for detail on how better to draw on regional and local voices on Radio National this week, Price said, “I’m providing my perspective as somebody who comes from Alice Springs, as somebody who comes from those areas …”
Asked for more detail, Price said, “The detail is about empowering regional voices … drawing from the structures that already exist. People in regional and remote Australia have hardly had the opportunity to effectively be listened to … maybe it’s because of language barriers.”
Alice Springs community leaders were among those to call out the Dutton-Price entourage for its performance. Meanwhile, Alice Springs Mayor Matt Paterson told ABC Radio that politicians needed to cease using the town as their campaign headquarters for the upcoming referendum. NT Police Minister Kate Worden slammed Dutton’s claims that Indigenous kids in Alice Springs “are being sexually assaulted on a regular basis”, calling it a “dog act”.
Dutton said he was there in Alice Springs to listen to local grievances. When pressed by an ABC reporter on Wednesday why he hadn’t bothered meeting with Smith as head of the registered and recognised body representing Native Title holders of Alice Springs, Dutton said he’d let those organisations “speak for themselves”.
“I’ve been out speaking to people on the ground. Shoppers in shopping centres,” he said.
Dutton again took aim at an ABC reporter yesterday when asked about his stance on a royal commission into rates of child sexual abuse in central Australia. Calling it “such an ABC question”, Dutton probed the reporter as to whether they lived locally and spoke to people on the streets.
“They’re the people who are on the front line. I don’t know what the academics are saying. I don’t know what the bureaucrats are saying. I can tell you though what the human experience is on the frontline and if the ABC doesn’t see fit to report that then frankly I think it reflects more on the ABC than it does on the locals here,” he said.
For Smith, “enough’s enough”. He described the “poor performing” political parade as a disrespectful free-for-all and a total breakdown of cultural protocols.
“There used to be rules around entering Arrernte country. Now we’ve got all these other tribes just coming into Alice Springs like it’s no man’s land,” he said.
“We’re going to pull our cultural protocol and cultural authority on every bastard in this town now, because we’ve had enough. Arrernte people have had enough.”
Price is getting wall-to-wall coverage and attention from the ABC. It seems likely that the obsession with so-called balance and the determination to give every possible opportunity to indigenous voices results in the ABC inviting her to speak as often as possible. It does not matter how representative she really is or whether her views make any sense or are based on any evidence. The weird and completely unbalanced way the media applies ‘balance’ means that the more somebody stands for an unpopular or minority view the more likely they are to be reported or interviewed often, because of the lack of others to make the same arguments.
This is rather like the BBC’s relentless coverage, both on TV and radio, of Nigel Farage before and during the Brexit referendum. Given how close that vote was in the end, the BBC probably got that referendum over the line by making Farage such a constant and often unchallenged presence, freely spreading all his lies and disinformation. No way could he have bought such publicity.
I agree, SSRE. in my view there ABC should present what is right, and not bend over backwards to be “balanced”. There are enough other mouthpieces out there speaking for the RWNJs.
Presumably you meant ‘correct’ rather than ‘right'[sic!] and would be the arbiter of what the “..ABC should present what is right..” and bugger balance?
Scary idea.
It would appear that “bugger balance” in the ABC reporting is what the writing wants!!!
I think the answer is proportional
It 100 % of Climate scientists say we’re f€&k then that’s the percentage that sold ve represented
If 70% then 30% of the coverage should go to those who disagree
The ABC should report objectively and factually, excepting distinct presentation specifically identified as Opinion.
“Balance” is a Fox News type propaganda construct where every opinion must be given equal weight simply by virtue of its existence, and facts are irrelevant.
Actually it was Lord Reith, when Rupe was still fighting his dad for a piece of the action.
That’s a new one. Recommending that the ABC not try to be balanced in their reporting. It is sarcasm isn’t it???
“Balance” would argue, eg: the voices for fascism and the voices for democracy receive equal exposure.
Pretty sure the only people who would see value in that, are the fascists.
The last two days have seen two articles on the ABC News Online which have cast doubt on whether Aboriginal people really want the Voice. There was no balance within the articles. Even just seeing the headline is enough to give some the impression that the Voice s a political imposition.
It seems the ABC has surely been captured. What to do?
Get rid of the cons stooges and grubs like Ita Buttrose.
Check Dana Morse’s report https://twitter.com/strangerous10/status/1646687435806613504?s=20.
She seems to be giving it to Dutton with both barrels.
For what it’s worth, this Saturday Price is also booked as the star attraction on Insiders, where I’m sure David Speers will interview to expectations. And going off at a slight tangent, on ABC RN Breakfast this morning we not only got Price and Dutton (quoted anyway) but the icing on the poisonous cake was Samantha Maiden going all out to support Dutton’s spray about alleged rampant child abuse, dismissing out of hand the lack of evidence or support from anybody with real knowledge, and condemning anybody with doubts about Dutton for not giving a damn about abused children. Who needs Fox News when we can enjoy this level of service from our national broadcaster?
Yes! I heard that. Made me get up. I thought, I can’t cope with this sh*t! So annoying. Sounded to me like PK is voting “no”. It’s certainly a “no” from her when it comes to intellectual rigour . . . A waste of perfectly good publicly funded broadcasting space. An insult.
PK didn’t need to say anything to Maiden because Speers did the job in his response to the question. And another interview that morning brought some more facts to bear on Maiden’s commentary. She made a dill of herself but probably came from a caring though ignorant position. Hopefully she’ll get herself better informed before commenting again – we shall see.
One interview can’t do everything – it’s just not physically possible. It’s up to us to be responsible for asking ourselves objective questions and seeking out real evidence that helps us answer them. It’s not up to PK, Stan Grant or anyone else to be running the Yes case, just as the unmentionable mob shouldn’t be running the No case.
Considering what’s been going on in this country for nearly 250 years, it’s not terribly much to ask a reasonably educated person who has access to to the Internet and is capable of learning to think critically.
Anyone who followed your final lines would quickly realise that the obvious, oft enumerated ills will not be cured by a feel-good vote for an unlimited, open cheque – yea, even unto perpetuity if crowbarred into the Constitution.
Legalese to follow? Oh good, that’s bound to end well.
You clearly have never read the Constitution
I call that Maiden’s line the KAK defence, after Kerri-Anne disgraced herself with racist comments about indigenous cmomunities a couple of years back. “Won’t somebody think of the (fabricated) children (who have been sexually assaulted)!”
Make it independent again
Farage et al. in UK, Bannon et al. in US and our usual suspects in media, LNP & ON, are all channeling the same deep south nativist planter or segregation socio-economic ideology; US linked think tanks, NGOs and biased media.
She takes me back to my days working in the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in custody, as a rolled gold example of what indigenous staff referred to as “coconuts” – black on the outside, white on the inside.
One of the more important comments I’ve read in a while thanks SSR, objectivity is fundamentally the editors/ producer job then the board to set the boundaries I would think.
Someone high up the pecking order , something like Rupert, but rather than using fear as the common denominator, educative and leaning toward “in good faith”, so the opposite.
It does force the issue of conservative and progressive having equal say and an arbiter, the all seeing all knowing wise persons, in this case the opinion of experts then an arbiter of who is an expert professional consensus.
it appears that this boils down to which political party installed the board. As most Crikey readers would concur we have been living in a Neoliberal ideologically based political environment for the past 40 years, which seems to be secured by ownership of large business organisations including , mining, media, agribusiness, pharma and banking. they dictate a countries agenda and their country of origin is significant. I doubt that if these industries were Chinese we would get a more balanced ABC, it is the nature of being the most influential superpower and small countries and their political environment being the spoils. Superpowers know the influence of information outlets.
All this sends the value for a democracy of having truly independent media outlets that can compete for mainstream space into the stratosphere. ie
“…because of the lack of others to make the same arguments.”
I think what you are forgetting is facts. How did alternate facts become a reality? While I think post-modernism must bear part of the responsibility, I fail to see how facts become lost in the debate. The report should well be, “Dutton made unverifiable assertions about child abuse to support his party’s policy that Aboriginal people should not have a voice”. That would be truthful and factual reporting.
So much opinion is now passed off as News, and the whole of media has become a tool of business that seeks viewers and clicks rather than integrity of ethics.
Like Abbott, Dutton is a wrecker. Let’s hear an alternative proposal in all area from the opposition. Meaningful attempts to improve things would surely involve that, rather than incessant negativity.
Yes. I have been expecting to hear the “details” of the Dutton ‘proposal’.
The Dutton show’s inability to co-operate with local protocols is also very telling.
“We don’t want to be the Voice in Canberra, like Jacinta wants to be. We want a Voice in Canberra and they’re distinctly different things. Jacinta does not represent us.” – eloquent.
22 years in parliament doesn’t equate to 22 years experience, Dutton has had 1 year of experience 22 times. Being negative is the full extent of his toolbox.
Perhaps being a parliamentarian is only his second job. He has an impressive property portfolio that must be attended to, and possibly ever open to expansion. That might explain his 1 year of experience 22 times. He has made choices that means he just doesn’t have time to expand his conception of being a parliamentarian.
Is it just me or do others also think that an indigenous person belonging to a right wing conservative christian political party is just a little bit odd.
Being used by a right wing conservative christian party more like it. Once the Voice is established she’ll be shelved.
I think she is using the rw for her own political gain, who knows she may rise to the very top.
She has little respect from the Arranda mob here.
She’s seen as ever divisive, ever finger pointing, no solutions offered. The player behind the scenes in both Bess and Jacinta’s politics is the white father Dave.
Mr Smith is right
Odd maybe, but Christianity is still alive and well in many communities. There was a 30m cross erected in one at the request of the locals just last week. Each to their own I guess. Price thinking she speaks for all mob is the more concerning I think
correction: 20m and at Memory Mountain
……and looks as out of place as a statue of Mickey Mouse would.
An utter abomination in that landscape.
Sorry. But I just think it’s you.
You should be sorry, because it’s not just them. It’s as bizarre as the fact that someone openly gay like the smarmy Tim Wilson should join a party whose members would be just as happy to take them back of the bike sheds and kick the crap out of them.
Tim’s rich. Stuff like that doesn’t happen to rich people.
Adam Giles comes to mind, flown in by Howard, ended up being chief minister, gave a 99 year lease to the Chinese for a port in Darwin, Now Gina Reinhardt’s best boy. No scruples whatsoever, all about personal power.
Dutton putting his people skills on public display……………………..
He talks to people.
People on the front line.
Who’d a thunk it?
Perhaps he would be better served if he listened instead of talking.
He talks to people or at people? When he is on tv I have the feeling of being talked at – and I live in the centre of Canberra and both my parents were Scots born.
It depends on whether you are a “battler” ($500k mortgage, family income $180k+)
or a “bludger” (someone who makes the “lifestyle choice” to not take up one of the non-existent $100k salary jobs in the Alice)
“Poor people” simply don’t exist in the Dutton universe…………………….
“Dutton probed the reporter as to whether they lived locally and spoke to people on the streets.” Really? Does Dutton? But never let irony or double standards get in the way of a good ABC bashing.
If you listen to the full interview, the journo says they actually are a local & keeps pressing Dutton for evidence to back up his sexual assault claims, which Dutton can’t do beyond anecdotes. It was a really good interview but for some reason the ABC didn’t air it in full.
The ABC has reporters pretty well everywhere. One of their strengths. The others have to fly people in.
From the city, where they haven’t a clue.