Jacinta Nampijinpa Price
Jacinta Suzette Yangapi Nampijinpa Price is an Aboriginal Australian politician. She is of Irish, Scottish and Warlpiri descent. She has been a senator for the Northern Territory since the 2022 federal election. She is a member of the Country Liberal Party, a conservative party operating in the Northern Territory and affiliated with the LiberalNational Coalition on a federal level. Since May 2025, she has sat with the Liberal Party in federal parliament, having formerly sat with the Nationals. She was the shadow defence minister until September 2025.
After a career as an entertainer singing, songwriting and hosting a Yamba Playtime children's program on Imparja TV, Price was elected to the Alice Springs Town Council in a by-election in October 2015, with her swearing-in overseen by her mother, then the NT Minister for Local Government. In the 2019 federal election, she unsuccessfully stood for the Country Liberal Party in the Division of Lingiari. She later worked for right-wing lobby group Advance and wrote opinion pieces for media owned by News Corp.
Price's activism and views focus primarily on issues faced by Aboriginal communities include domestic violence, herself being a victim, and she is a vocal advocate for conservative politics in Australia, appearing frequently on Sky News Australia. She has also received significant donations from Gina Rinehart and been described by Lachlan Murdoch as ‘a beacon of light in a sea of woke darkness’. She has highlighted the high rates of domestic and other violence in Aboriginal communities, and advocates for a harder law and order approach. She is critical of welfare dependency and what she describes as “opportunistic collectivism". She opposed the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament, and believes that calls to change Australia Day and the Australian flag are counterproductive to Aboriginal advancement.
Early life
Price was born on 12 May 1981 in Darwin, Northern Territory, and grew up in Alice Springs. Her father, David Price, is of Anglo-Celtic descent and was born in Newcastle, New South Wales. Her mother, Bess Price, who served in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, is a Warlpiri woman. Her parents met in Yuendumu in 1976, working at the local school; David as a teacher in the bilingual program, while Bess was 15–16 years old, producing Warlpiri literacy materials.Bess Price is a fellow member of the CLP, who served as a minister in the Adam Giles NT Government, holding portfolios including housing and statehood, and was a vocal supporter of the Howard government's 2007 Northern Territory Intervention, that implemented new legislation in response to the crises facing Aboriginal communities.
Price has written that her mother was "born under a tree and lived within an original Warlpiri structured environment through a kinship system on Aboriginal land. Her first language was Warlpiri, and her parents, my grandparents, only came into contact with white settlers in their early adolescence in the 1940s."
She travelled widely with her family as a child, camping in the bush on swags. By the age of seven she had visited every Australian state and, by 12, had travelled around the world.
In Year 12, she gave birth to her first son.
TV and musical career
Price is a NAIDOC Award-winning singer, songwriter and recording artist. As a child, she learned the violin before joining local hip-hop groups Flava 4 and C-Mobs. She began performing rap and hip-hop on stage with her cousins around the age of 15. In 2001, she was chosen to sing the national anthem for the Yeperenye Federation Festival. She was a member of the Alice Springs trio Catch the Fly, who wrote and performed songs about "friendship and the silliness that comes with friendship, and the poking fun at one another and laughing at ourselves". In Catch the Fly, Price adopted the persona of a "sexy, sassy, rap hip-hop chick" by the name of "Sassy J".In 2013, she released her first music album Dry River, a mix of folk, soul and country music, paying tribute to her life growing up in Central Australia. Triple J likened her sound to that of Tracy Chapman, while Land Rights News described her sound as a blend of folk, blues and country which "reflects her Aboriginal/Celtic heritage". The album was produced by Bill Chambers and Price’s husband Colin Lillie. Within the music industry, Price developed the Desert Divas program, which nurtures female Indigenous musical talent.
Price also had a TV career in the children's television program, Yamba's Playtime, where she played the best friend of the lead character Yamba the Honey Ant. Price is in addition a regular guest on Sky News Australia.
Entry into politics
Alice Springs Council (2015–2021)
Price was elected as a councillor on the Alice Springs Town Council at a by-election in October 2015. At her swearing in to the Alice Springs council in 2015, Price's mother Bess Price officiated, as NT Minister for Local Government.Price shared a close relationship with fellow councillor Jamie di Brenni, and agreed with him on most issues. She said in a 2017 interview that her values aligned with generally "with the old white fellas" on the council; however, she was against fracking as there is a potential risk to water sources from this practice. Price said that council had not done enough to combat the disproportionate amount of violence against women seen in Alice Springs, and she would like to see more campaigning on the issue. She had called a forum with women, including town camp residents, to discuss community needs and antisocial behaviour. She had also worked with the council's Youth Action Group, and had championed recreational and creative opportunities for youth in the town.
Price was the top scoring councillor candidate at the 2017 Alice Springs local government election, and stated at the time that she was committed to the Alice Springs Town Council, however six months into her four-year term, she announced she was seeking endorsement to be the CLP candidate for the Division of Lingiari at the upcoming 2019 Australian federal election. She became the Deputy Mayor of Alice Springs in September 2020. She served until August 2021, when she did not stand for re-election as a councillor.
2019 federal election candidate
Price stood unsuccessfully, as the Country Liberal Party candidate, for the Division of Lingiari at the 2019 federal election. She secured 44.54 percent of the two-party preferred vote against long-serving Labor incumbent Warren Snowdon, to his 55.46 percent.In January of that year, Greens Lingiari candidate George Hanna, who is also indigenous, had shared a meme about Price, referring to her as a "coconut", a metaphor for someone of indigenous background who is attuned more to white cultural norms and values than those of native culture: like a coconut "white on the inside". Price described the post as despicable and racist, and called for the Greens to disendorse Hanna, but the Greens refused. Aboriginal activist Steve Hodder Watt accused Price of hypocrisy, and published messages in which Price referred to him as "white".
Price was also criticised over a video of an Al Jazeera video which she had posted to her Facebook page in 2014, and which had featured a critique of violence in Islam by writer-psychiatrist Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-American ex-Muslim. The Australian National Imams Council called the video Islamophobic. In response, a CLP spokesperson told the ABC News that her motivation for sharing the video was part of her long campaign against the use of religion or culture to justify violence against women.
Senator for the Northern Territory (2022–present)
Price became a Senator for the Northern Territory at the 2022 federal election, replacing Sam McMahon, whom she defeated for preselection in June 2021. She was pre-selected in the Country Liberal Party's number one Senate ticket position for the election, and successfully won the second of two seats alongside Labor's Malarndirri McCarthy. As a senator elected from a territory, Price's term commenced immediately, as opposed to senators elected from the states, whose terms are fixed to start from 1 July.Maiden speech
Price delivered her first speech in the Senate on 27 July 2022. Prior to making the address, she took part in a traditional ceremony with her grandmother handing her a nulla-nulla hunting stick sourced from her Country. "The ceremony was telling the story about Jukurrpa, which is Dreaming relating to our family", Price said. "Passing on through this nulla-nulla the authority to me to speak on behalf of our area." Wearing traditional headdress for her maiden speech, she then outlined her priorities for office, citing housing, women's safety and economic development as key concerns. The Age reported that Price made an "impassioned plea against 'false narratives' of racism and the push for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament a symbolic gesture that could divide black and white Australia". Price called for a restoration of law and order in remote communities to combat the scourge of violence:Price invoked the legacy of the first Aboriginal Senator Neville Bonner to criticise welfare dependency and "opportunistic collectivism" as barriers to Aboriginal advancement:
Indigenous leader and politician Warren Mundine called the address the "greatest speech" he'd heard in parliament. Journalist Greg Sheridan called it "magnificent... a kind of Australian Gettysburg Address that should be read by all Australians". The Age newspaper called the speech a "red flag for Albanese" on the Indigenous Voice issue.
Shadow minister (2023–2025)
Price was appointed the Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians in the Dutton shadow ministry on 18 April 2023. The prospect of her becoming Minister for Indigenous Australians had been viewed with concern by left-wing Indigenous activists.In early 2025, Price was appointed as the Minister for Government Efficiency, a new portfolio based on the United States' Department of Government Efficiency.
After Sussan Ley became leader, the government efficiency portfolio was abolished and Price was replaced as Indigenous Minister by Kerrynne Liddle. Price was appointed as the Minister for Defence Industry and Personnel.
In September 2025, after Price made comments about Indian-Australians voting predominantly for Labor, she was stood down from the shadow ministry.