Peter FitzSimons’ feud with ABC personality Stan Grant – amid stoush with Jacinta Price

A bitter war of words is currently raging between Peter FitzSimons and Senator Jacinta Price – but it’s not the first time the columnist and author has been embroiled in a high-profile media battle. 

FitzSimons had a falling out with Indigenous ABC TV personality Stan Grant over his book on Captain James Cook in 2021.

Grant accused his former friend of making Cook sound like ‘the prototypical Aussie good bloke’ and slammed his description of the explorer as ‘an enthusiastic imperialist’ as ‘ludicrous’.

In response, FitzSimons defended his work and said it had been meticulously researched over several years.

Relations between the two worsened in April last year when Grant wrote a satirical piece for The Australian mocking FitzSimons and his wife Lisa Wilkinson – host of The Project.

For years, FitzSimons hosted an Australia Day barbecue at the couple’s multimillion-dollar harbourside home at Cremorne.

Grant, who attended the gathering on a semi-regular basis, mocked it in his piece. 

‘What a woke leftie love-in that was: journos, actors, writers, couple of ex-Wallabies (well it was the North Shore), a few washed up politicians,’ he wrote.

‘Everyone there voted yes for same-sex marriage – the year ­before last, they’d all tearily ­applauded their first gay married couple guests – they hated the Catholic Church and had cried when Kevin Rudd said sorry.’ 

Grant wrote that the hosts FitzSimons and Wilkinson: ‘adored Indigenous culture’. 

‘There were dot paintings on the wall, a photo with their arms around Cathy Freeman at Sydney Olympic Stadium, and a framed copy of Paul Keating’s Redfern Statement signed by the last great Australian prime minister himself.’

‘Things did get a bit weird though when Fitzy excitedly gave her a copy of his latest book, a biography of Captain Cook.

‘Apparently Cookie was actually not a bad bloke once you got past his order to open fire on the blacks at Botany Bay. Nobody’s perfect.’

FitzSimons responded to the Grant piece with a column in The Sydney Morning Herald in which he objected to its blend of ‘fiction and fact’.  

‘For the record, and contrary to what Stan wrote, I don’t have a framed Redfern speech on my wall, nor a photo of me hugging Cathy Freeman, nor Indigenous paintings,’ he wrote. 

‘We don’t even have the party on Australia Day any more, having moved it to an Independence Day gathering the day before, for obvious reasons.’

According to The Australian, FitzSimons told friends he was genuinely wounded by what he felt was an unfair and unprovoked attack 

Later, Grant said told friends ‘there are more important things to worry about in the world’ than FitzSimons’ reaction to the piece.

‘People who can’t laugh at themselves aren’t one of them,’ he added.

News of his feud with Grant comes amid his continued stoush with Aboriginal Senator Jacinta Price over the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum.

The two have exchanged accusations through the media about an interview he conducted with her about her opposition to the vote.

She claimed he was ‘rude and aggressive’ in the interview, while the writer has responded by saying she has publicly misrepresented his conduct.

Media identity Mike Carlton – who is a close friend of FitzSimons as they share a private school upbringing, vaunted positions in Sydney’s old media establishment, passion for rugby and virtuous left-wing politics – has weighed in.

‘Three days in a row The Australian and the publicity-hungry Jacinta Price have attacked my friend (Peter FitzSimons),’ he tweeted.

In her now-deleted Facebook post, Country Liberal Party Senator Price said the interview with FitzSimons, who is married to TV host Lisa Wilkinson, started out well, but that he became ‘aggressive… condescending and rude’ to her.

She said it ‘was like talking to a brick wall’ and she felt ‘insulted’.

‘I’m not a wilting violet but he’s a very aggressive bloke, his interview style is very bloody aggressive, he doesn’t need to launch in,’ she said.

‘Accusing me of somehow giving power to racists because the issues I raise are confronting – he loses the point completely,’ said Ms Price, who was born to a Warlpiri mother and an Anglo-Celtic father. 

She said FitzSimons had accused her ‘of somehow giving power to racists because the issues I raise are confronting – he loses the point completely’.

‘I said to him, “Get down from the bloody ivory tower and come out to one of my communities”.’ 

FitzSimons denied Senator Price’s characterisation of how the interview went and said her claims were ‘complete and utter … nonsense’. 

The interview was a ‘professional exchange’, he said.

Sydney Morning Herald editor Bevan Shields also weighed in on Wednesday night after listening to the interview.

‘I’ve listened to audio of the full interview between Peter FitzSimons and Senator Price. There was no yelling and no shouting from either participant. This was an interesting interview in which the senator’s positions and views were tested. The Australian really needs to move on,’ Shields wrote.

‘It’s worth noting that Peter provided Senator Price with a transcript of what he proposed to publish in his column and she approved it. She also deleted her initial Facebook post about the interview.’

However, neither the Herald nor FitzSimons himself has met Senator Price’s challenge to release the audio of the interview so the public can assess it for themselves. 

EXCLUSIVE: Text bombshell in Peter FitzSimons vs. Jacinta Price saga as messages show what happened after Aboriginal senator attacked left-wing author – with BOTH claiming they have witnesses to controversial interview 

By Charlie Moore, Political Reporter for Daily Mail Australia

Peter FitzSimons and Price both furiously insisted they had witnesses backing their accounts of a phone interview in which the new senator claims the left-wing author was ‘rude’ and ‘aggressive’.

Daily Mail Australia has obtained the furious text messages FitzSimons exchanged with the Country Liberals senator for the Northern Territory in the wake of the interview being published in the Sun Herald newspaper at the weekend.

Ms Price has gone public saying she felt FitzSimons – the husband of TV host Lisa Wilkinson – ‘imposed’ his view on her during their chat about the merits and faults of the Voice to Parliament. 

In a Facebook post after the article was published, Senator Price alleged FitzSimons ‘accused me of giving racists a voice but that wasn’t printed’ and later told media he was ‘aggressive’ and ‘rude’ and shouted at her.

FitzSimons strongly denies her claims and swiftly texted asking her to remove the Facebook post, which she did.

The full text exchange between the pair shows they both claimed to have witnesses to the phone call as they argued over what happened.

‘Senator, I urge you to withdraw these defamatory accusations, as you know it is nonsense,’ FitzSimons wrote.

Senator Price hit back: ‘We did yell at each other. I’d like a copy of the interview… you did accuse me of empowering racists.’ 

FitzSimons insisted there was ‘not a single raised voice on either side’ but she replied: ‘I recall I had to yell, as did my chief of staff who was present while you were on speaker.’    

The author responded by saying: ‘I have a witness at my end as well. But it doesn’t matter. It is all recorded.’

FitzSimons again asked her to withdraw her allegations before Senator Price ended the argument by replying: ‘Please stop bullying me. 

‘I don’t ever want to communicate with you again.’ 

Senator Price and FitzSimons originally chatted to discuss Anthony Albanese’s proposal to change the constitution to establish a Voice to Parliament, a group of Aboriginal people that would advise politicians on policies for Indigenous people.

FitzSimons is in favour while Senator Price is against, believing it will not help improve the lives of Aboriginal people. 

After FitzSimons denied being rude to Senator Price, she urged him to release the recording of the interview so the public could make up their own minds.

‘I’m quite happy for him to release the recordings if that will just settle things,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.

‘It’s been a bit of a drain and there’s obviously a lot of more important issues that I want to focus on and get to work on as a new senator. It’s been a not-so-welcome distraction,’ she said of their dispute.

‘My idea of more respectful and effective journalism is to have conversations about issues without having the opinions of a journalist imposed upon you and being made to feel as though you’re somehow wrong or incorrect.

Senator Price said it is wrong for journalists or commentators to be surprised when an Aboriginal person speaks out against the Voice to Parliament.

‘There has been a racial stereotype created around how Aboriginal Australians think and act and behave and we don’t generalise in that way about white Australians, or Italian Australians or Asia Australians,’ she said.

‘So why should we continually have that way of thinking imposed upon us as Indigenous Australians? Again it is a racial stereotype and I won’t have a bar of it.’

Senator Price said people need to be more accepting of diverse views within the Aboriginal community.

‘The narrative that we are a country of oppressed people and oppressors – we’ve got to get away from that. It’s not helpful, it’s not constructive,’ she said.

‘It provides for a very narrow view of how we are as a diverse bunch of Australians and we’ve got to take it back to basics of what it means to be human.’

‘Every single word recorded, as I told her,’ FitzSimons told The Australian’s Media Diary.

He said the interview was conducted without a raised voice and that Ms Price approved the final story.

‘This is not remotely a matter of interpretation. Friendly interview, nice text exchange at its conclusion,’ he said.

Ms Price said she was shocked by FitzSimons’ stance on Indigenous issues.

‘I was really taken aback and I was exhausted by the energy it took having to defend myself,’ she said.

‘I was made to feel as though what I was trying to do is wrong and my voice is not as legitimate as those who purport to suffer from 250 years of colonisation.’