Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has claimed Anthony Albanese does not have the “character” to be prime minister, slamming his handling of indigenous affairs and racial issues.
The shadow minister for Indigenous Australians issued a fiery criticism on the one-year anniversary of the Voice referendum defeat.
Ms Price slammed the Prime Minister for allowing states to press ahead with treaties despite 60 per cent of the country voting ‘no’ to the vote.
Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, the ACT and Northern Territory want to pursue their own treaty, while South Australia created a Voice in March 2023.
Ms Price also claimed that ‘extremist behaviour’ had been allowed to continue unchecked because Mr Albanese was too busy playing ‘identity politics’.
The Coalition senator was referring to a white supremacist rally held in Corowa, regional NSW, on Saturday.
“This kind of behavior must absolutely be condemned, but the problem is that this Prime Minister has failed to stamp out this kind of extremist behavior,” she told 2GB host Ben Fordham on Monday.
She linked what happened in Corowa to a pro-Palestinian rally held in Sydney just over a year ago following the Hamas atrocity in Israel that killed 1,139 people and the failed Indigenous Voice referendum.
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (pictured) has spoken out against Anthony Albanese over his handling of indigenous affairs, saying he doesn’t have ‘the character’ to be Prime Minister
“If you fail to align those who want to protest on the steps of the Opera House, if you undertake an activity that divides a nation by race and you play into identity politics,” she said.
“This is the environment that is being created for this kind of nonsense to happen.”
Ms. Price continued her scathing attack in an article for The Australian saying Mr Albanese had failed to meet the needs of the Aboriginal community following the defeat of The Voice.
“Anthony Albanese’s handling of indigenous affairs in the 12 months that followed (the referendum) have served as an indictment of his character as the leader of this great country,” she wrote.
The Northern Territory politician said the Prime Minister had made it clear since coming to power in the May 2022 election that the referendum would be “his defining political moment”.
But she said: ‘It is not the failure of the referendum… that has been the Prime Minister’s downfall. It’s his reaction to that.’
She said Mr Albanese had failed to respect the wishes of the Australian people in the referendum vote, given that voting and treaty-style negotiations are taking place across the country, in states and territories.
“What does it mean to respect someone’s wishes when you continually allow the progress of things to go against those interests when you have the power to stop them,” she wrote.
Continuing her fierce attack, Nampijinpa Price said the Prime Minister’s “pride” led him to “mislead the public about the establishment of the Makarrata Commission.”
Ms Nampijinpa Price said Mr Albanese (pictured) is responsible for a white supremacist rally in the NSW town of Corowa on Saturday
The Makarrata Commission is said to have been working on a treaty between the federal government and the First Nations community, although the Labor government has since downplayed its importance.
Ms Nampijinpa Price said there is a final plan to establish Makarrata as a formal body.
“Albanians have pledged $27.7 million for its creation; It was then allocated $5.8 million over three years, and in fact over $650,000 was spent by the National Indigenous Australians Agency,” she wrote.
“For Albanians to stand up at this year’s Garma Festival and suggest that Makarrata was nothing more than the atmosphere of coming together after conflict is outrageous.”
She added that the prime minister “chose to risk his political career, and its defeat did not have to be his downfall.
“But the past twelve months have left no doubt that Albanians do not have the character needed to lead this country into the future.”
“We should never feel that we are in a country divided along racial lines. It should never have gotten to this point,” she told Fordham.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Prime Minister for his response.