Speaker 1: You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker
Speaker 1: every morning. To hear the latest episode, just say play
Speaker 1: the News from the Australian. From The Australian, I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: A special bonus episode of The Front for you today.
Speaker 1: It's the first in a series of episodes we're rolling
Speaker 1: out over the next six weekends. As part of The
Speaker 1: Australian's sixtieth anniversary celebrations, We've asked a handful of the
Speaker 1: nation's most eminent thinkers, commentators and experts to reflect on
Speaker 1: the past six decades. Their observations about everything from power
Speaker 1: and politics to science and identity have been published in
Speaker 1: a special edition Glossy Magazine out today. First up is
Speaker 1: political firebrand Senator Jacinta Numbi imp Price, the opposition spokesperson
Speaker 1: for Indigenous Australians, was the secret weapon of the No
Speaker 1: camp during last year's referendum on a Voice to Parliament.
Speaker 1: She felt the proposed advisory body wouldn't be effective in
Speaker 1: addressing the practical challenges faced by Aboriginal people in rural
Speaker 1: and remote communities. The voice was resoundingly voted down on
Speaker 1: October fourteen, with just over sixty percent of Australians voting
Speaker 1: against the constitutional change. Jacinta number Imp Price has written
Speaker 1: today on the theme of history. She says, we need
Speaker 1: to be honest with ourselves about the good and bad
Speaker 1: aspects of our national story if we want to move
Speaker 1: forward together. That's today's episode.
Speaker 2: Our Australian story is not perfect. There are shameful chapters,
Speaker 2: but the arc of our history has been overwhelmingly positive.
Speaker 2: It's a story that has few historical parallels.
Speaker 1: That Senator Jacinta numbim for Price, reading an excerpt from
Speaker 1: her essay for The Australian.
Speaker 2: The ends don't always justify the means, but honesty is
Speaker 2: required if we're to move forward and reconcile as a nation.
Speaker 1: The father, David, was a history teacher and a white man.
Speaker 1: He hails from Newcastle in the New South Wales, Hunter
Speaker 1: although he has Irish heritage. He married Jacinta's mum, Woolbury
Speaker 1: woman and former Northern Territory minister, Bess Nongurai Price, more
Speaker 1: than forty years ago. They met in the town of
Speaker 1: Yondermou and later relocated to Alice Springs, where they raised
Speaker 1: Jacinta and her brother, Leonard, Jacinta's big brother died of
Speaker 1: cancer when he was just ten. She was three years
Speaker 1: old at the time. The Price has traveled widely, and
Speaker 1: young Jacinta had been around the world and seen every
Speaker 1: Australian state before her thirteenth birthday. But it was growing
Speaker 1: up on Walpury Country, her mom's country as part of
Speaker 1: a mixed race family with a history teacher dad that
Speaker 1: had a huge impact on how Price thinks about our
Speaker 1: collective past.
Speaker 2: I'm biased because my father was a history teacher, so
Speaker 2: I had no choice but to appreciate and value what
Speaker 2: history means.
Speaker 1: Just Into not being Propriseed got her start not in politics,
Speaker 1: but in showbiz. Ah She worked as a singer songwriter
Speaker 1: throughout her twenties, releasing her first album in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: She describes her sound as a little bit country, a
Speaker 1: little bit folk, and a little bit soul, and the
Speaker 1: album was a tribute to her early life in the territory.
Speaker 1: Two years later, in twenty fifteen, her mum, Bess officiated
Speaker 1: Just Into swearing in as a counselor on the Alice
Speaker 1: Springs Town Council, where she served until twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: She ran in the twenty nineteen federal election, but lost
Speaker 1: to incumbent Warren Snowden. The next time round, she got up,
Speaker 1: winning a Senate seat as a member of the Country
Speaker 1: Liberal Party, and her views on indigenous issues, domestic violence
Speaker 1: and colonization have been ruffling feathers ever since.
Speaker 2: The hard fact is that once modernity emerged across the globe,
Speaker 2: the hunter gatherer life was not going to last long.
Speaker 2: There is no alternative possible version of Australian history where
Speaker 2: Indigenous Isustralians would have been left alone to continue their
Speaker 2: way of life. The only question was about colonization by
Speaker 2: who and when, rather than if we're fortunate it was
Speaker 2: the British who arrived and not many of the other alternatives.
Speaker 1: In her essay for The Australian and in her recent
Speaker 1: political life, just Into not being Proprised says, we have
Speaker 1: to talk frankly about the horrors some colonizers inflicted, like
Speaker 1: the massacres of Aboriginal men, women and children on the frontiers.
Speaker 2: We need to understand the atrocities that occurred so that
Speaker 2: we don't repeat history. But we also need to understand
Speaker 2: the good that occurred within our history, the way in
Speaker 2: which we forged a way of life together and created
Speaker 2: a unique shared Australian culture. I think we need to
Speaker 2: be able to instill pride within our children, within the
Speaker 2: generations to come, because if you don't have that sense
Speaker 2: of pride in who you are and where you come from,
Speaker 2: then we can't progress forward in a positive way, in
Speaker 2: a constructive way.
Speaker 1: Indigenous leaders have spent decades pushing for treaty, but in
Speaker 1: the twenty tens this morphed into a vision for something
Speaker 1: much more specific, a three phase process, beginning with a
Speaker 1: voice to Parliament than a Macarata Commission, and then a
Speaker 1: treaty with First Nations people. Here's voice proponent and Cobble
Speaker 1: Cobble Woman, Professor Meghan Davis.
Speaker 3: Macarata is the culmination of our gender. It captures our
Speaker 3: aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people
Speaker 3: of Australia and a better future for our children based
Speaker 3: on justice and self determination.
Speaker 1: This became Anthony Albanesi's first pledge as Prime Minister, present
Speaker 1: and emerging and on behalf of the Australian Labor Party.
Speaker 2: I commit to the ularu's statement from the heart and cold.
Speaker 1: Macarata is a young word that translates loosely to coming
Speaker 1: together after a struggle. The Macarata Commission, proposed in the
Speaker 1: Ularu Statement, was to focus on truth telling about Australia's
Speaker 1: recent history, but as a significant player in the thumping
Speaker 1: defeat of the Voice, Senator Price isn't a fan of
Speaker 1: Macarata either.
Speaker 2: I don't think we need truth telling I think the
Speaker 2: concept of truth telling in the framework of Indigenous policy
Speaker 2: Indigenous Australians is more driven by this notion that somehow
Speaker 2: modern non Indigenous Australians have to compensate for what occurred
Speaker 2: to Aboriginal people in our country's history. I wouldn't suggest
Speaker 2: the idea of truth telling is the way forward because
Speaker 2: I feel it's more of a reinvention of history, a
Speaker 2: rewrite of history. If you're like, we need to add
Speaker 2: to our history, certainly there's a broader picture that's not
Speaker 2: being told that needs to complement what we've already been
Speaker 2: told about our nation's history, and I think that's what
Speaker 2: needs to be done through the education system, through our historians.
Speaker 2: But working together Indigenous and non Indigenous Australia in that
Speaker 2: way to fill that gap.
Speaker 1: Instead, just enterprise backs a different kind of movement.
Speaker 2: I think the advancement movement is about taking a positive
Speaker 2: view of ourselves as a nation and in order to
Speaker 2: solve our problems, we need to get on board with
Speaker 2: one another. No more separatism. How can we push for
Speaker 2: separatism when many of us, our DNA won't allow it,
Speaker 2: our family circumstances, our community circumstances doesn't allow for it.
Speaker 2: It's ludicrous. And you know, the Advancement movement to me
Speaker 2: is about treating everybody equally. Is about you know, I
Speaker 2: guess for me politically also is serving astralogs on the
Speaker 2: basis of need instead of race. It's about looking forward
Speaker 2: in practical ways and applying practicality to our everyday lives.
Speaker 1: Coming up what just internumpim Forprise says about guilt and responsibility.
Speaker 1: It's the Australian's sixtieth birthday on Monday July fifteen, and
Speaker 1: we're diving into our own history. Join ours subscribers at
Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot a U and we'll be
Speaker 1: back after this break. Senator just inter Numpian for Price
Speaker 1: met her husband, Scottish Australian singer col and Lily, when
Speaker 1: they were both working in the music business. They married
Speaker 1: in a traditional ceremony and live in Alice Springs with
Speaker 1: their blended family. It's a busy household with just Into's
Speaker 1: three sons and Colin's one all growing up together. At
Speaker 1: last year's Great Voice Debate hosted by The Australian in
Speaker 1: the run up to last year's Voice referendum, she described
Speaker 1: her family's mixed heritage like.
Speaker 2: This, We've got a blended family. Boys that've got different
Speaker 2: backgrounds and heritage within them. You know, Risian, French, Creole, Malay, Indian,
Speaker 2: you know Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, English. I think it's Chinese.
Speaker 2: The great great grandfather from Odam, Big Waldbury. They're Australian
Speaker 2: kids and ultimately this is personal for US.
Speaker 1: Senator Price sees her own extended family dynamic reflected all
Speaker 1: around the country.
Speaker 2: We've got that shared unity. I grew up in a
Speaker 2: place like Gallas Springs. Everyone was of mixed heritage and
Speaker 2: you know, there was into marrying going on. And that's
Speaker 2: the case right across Australia. I mean in the cities,
Speaker 2: I think somewhere like eighty percent of those who identify
Speaker 2: as Indigenous and married to non Indigenous Australians. So we're
Speaker 2: mixing it up. You know we are the Australian story.
Speaker 1: She says, the idea that modern Australians should bear the
Speaker 1: responsibility and the guilt for the sins of the past
Speaker 1: is holding us all back.
Speaker 2: I've spoken previously. I've written about the Connistant massacre which
Speaker 2: occurred in my family's country, the last sanction massacre occurred
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty eight, and the fact that many of
Speaker 2: my Woppery family were murdered as a result of that,
Speaker 2: but that seventy five years after it occurred, we had
Speaker 2: a commemorative ceremony and invited those descendants of those who
Speaker 2: killed our family to say to them, look, we don't
Speaker 2: blame you for what happened in our country's history. We
Speaker 2: want to recognize these were hard times, but we are
Speaker 2: now together as Australian as moving forward. And I think
Speaker 2: that was one of the greatest acts of reconciliation that
Speaker 2: I've ever been a part of, and it was just
Speaker 2: a natural process for my family. And so I've spoken
Speaker 2: about history and that context, but I think it was
Speaker 2: important that day to talk about positive effects elements of colonization, modernization,
Speaker 2: if you like, because it's rarely ever really highlighted or
Speaker 2: discussed it's always within the lens of the horrors, the atrocities,
Speaker 2: and that everyone now has to compensate for what happened
Speaker 2: in our nation's history, and talk of reparations and all
Speaker 2: of those sorts of things, and we've got to move
Speaker 2: forward from that.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Kristen Amiot with the support
Speaker 1: of Bianco far Marcus. You can read the full essay
Speaker 1: by Senator Jacinta NumPy Enterprise in the special edition Glossymag
Speaker 1: out today or online at Big Australian dot com, dot
Speaker 1: ju