Latest / Inside Politics / Why the sacking of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price could turn the senator ‘into a martyr’

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Why the sacking of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price could turn the senator ‘into a martyr’ · Inside Politics

0:01
S1: From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
0:04
S1: This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley, it's Friday, September 12th.
0:09
S1: Controversial Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa price was sacked from the
0:13
S1: coalition frontbench this week. Price left opposition leader Sussan Ley
0:18
S1: with very little choice after she refused to apologise for
0:21
S1: comments that she made about the Indian community, and then
0:24
S1: refused to publicly affirm her faith in Lee's leadership. Joining
0:29
S1: me to discuss, we have our chief political correspondent, Paul Satchell,
0:33
S1: as usual, and federal political correspondent Natassia Chrysanthos. We'll also
0:37
S1: check in on the climate debate that is about to
0:39
S1: hot up. Pun intended. Welcome, guys.
0:42
S2: Hey, Jack. Morning.
0:50
S1: Paul, we're now into our second week of talking about
0:53
S1: the fallout from Senator Price's comments on Indian migrants. And
0:56
S1: then on Wednesday evening this week, opposition leader Sussan Ley
0:59
S1: finally acted and she sacked price from the coalition frontbench.
1:03
S1: So what was the final straw? Why? What sort of
1:05
S1: pushed her to act this week?
1:07
S3: Well, this has bubbled along. It didn't turn into a
1:10
S3: kind of full blown crisis until Wednesday, a week before Wednesday.
1:15
S3: Jacinta price gave an interview on the ABC, where she
1:19
S3: raised the issue of Indian migrants in Australia.
1:22
S4: That there is a concern with the Indian community and
1:25
S4: only because there's been large numbers and we can see
1:27
S4: that reflected in the way that the community votes for
1:30
S4: labor at the same time.
1:32
S3: She copped a lot of criticism for these comments. She
1:34
S3: had to backtrack and make clear that Australia has a
1:37
S3: non-discriminatory migration program. Sussan Ley and other senior liberals asked
1:42
S3: her privately, and some said publicly that she must apologise.
1:46
S3: She declined to do so. She dug in and said
1:49
S3: that we need to have a debate about immigration and
1:50
S3: she wouldn't be silenced. And then on Wednesday, she was
1:53
S3: in Perth for a Liberal Party event and held an
1:56
S3: impromptu press conference, a very short one, where she said
2:00
S3: that she appreciated all the support she'd received from people
2:04
S3: who are concerned about migration, and that she would not
2:07
S3: be silenced on the issue. And a journalist who was
2:09
S3: there asked her repeatedly as she was about to wrap
2:12
S3: up the press conference, do you have confidence in your leader,
2:15
S3: Sussan Ley? He asked her three times and each time
2:18
S3: she said.
2:19
S4: Look again, those matters are for our party room.
2:23
S5: Full confidence in her leadership.
2:24
S4: Those matters are for our party room. My focus is
2:28
S4: to go forward and to ensure that we're doing the
2:31
S4: right thing by the Australian people, which is what we're
2:35
S4: elected to do.
2:37
S5: Do you fully back her leadership?
2:38
S4: That is that is what my concerns are.
2:41
S3: This turned into quite a personal feud over the last
2:44
S3: few days between Leigh and Price. Price's supporters insist she
2:47
S3: wasn't actually trying to create a leadership crisis. She wasn't
2:50
S3: trying to blow apart the party. There is no leadership
2:54
S3: contest in the offing, but she felt personally offended by
2:58
S3: the way Susan Leigh's key ally, Alex Hawke spoke to
3:02
S3: her staff earlier in the week, and even though some
3:05
S3: of her supporters believed she was getting closer to an apology,
3:08
S3: that feud with Hawke, and by extension Leigh, caused her
3:11
S3: to dig in and have a public argument, which led
3:14
S3: to her effectively not endorsing her own leader, which for
3:18
S3: Susan Lee's hand.
3:19
S6: Coalition Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa price has been sacked from the
3:22
S6: shadow ministry after a week long storm over her Indian
3:26
S6: migrant comments.
3:28
S7: Today, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa price critically failed to provide confidence
3:36
S7: in my leadership of the Liberal Party. Confidence in the
3:40
S7: leader is a requirement for serving in the shadow ministry.
3:46
S7: A couple of hours ago, I spoke to the senator
3:50
S7: and I advised her of my decision.
3:55
S1: Did Senator Price have any sort of strategy here? Task
3:58
S1: do you think, when she called this press conference that
4:00
S1: she didn't have to call and refused to apologize repeatedly.
4:04
S1: Was she sort of directly issuing a challenge, do you think,
4:07
S1: to Susan Lee's leadership?
4:09
S2: I think the particular position of Jacinta Price in the
4:12
S2: Parliament and in the Liberal Party is very interesting. I
4:14
S2: think she was under an immense amount of pressure from
4:17
S2: her colleagues last week. But the unique thing about Senator
4:21
S2: Price is that unlike almost all of her colleagues, her
4:25
S2: kind of support and power doesn't come from within the
4:28
S2: Parliamentary Liberal Party. Her support and power comes from this
4:32
S2: huge social media following. She has this huge conservative base,
4:36
S2: the kind of fundraising money she draws for the liberals,
4:40
S2: and there were competing demands from those two groups of people.
4:43
S2: She's also backed by people like Tony Abbott. Her colleagues
4:46
S2: wanted her to back down and apologise. Her entire brand
4:50
S2: and how she's built herself up to the point that
4:52
S2: she has, is based on being unapologetic, is being outspoken,
4:57
S2: is being defiant. So I it feels like it kind
5:00
S2: of came to this sticking point where, you know, coalescing
5:06
S2: to Lee and other liberal demands would would have compromised
5:08
S2: her standing amongst her followers this whole time. While Liberal
5:11
S2: MPs are on the television saying Senator Price should apologize,
5:13
S2: Senate price should apologize, her supporters are flooding her social
5:16
S2: media with support. They're emailing people like Alex Hawke, telling
5:21
S2: him that he needs to, you know, butt out of
5:24
S2: it and leave Jacinta to speak her truth. So I
5:28
S2: think at the end of the day, she stuck with
5:31
S2: the kind of political persona that speaks to that base
5:34
S2: and that for her, she was never going to back
5:37
S2: down and apologize. That's not what her political brand is
5:40
S2: built upon.
5:41
S1: Yeah. Okay, Paul, this was obviously super messy for the liberals.
5:45
S1: As we've just said, it went on for way too long.
5:47
S1: Even Barnaby Joyce, who's not known for his public discretion,
5:51
S1: said last week, I think, you know, you make mistakes
5:53
S1: in politics, but you've just got to tidy them up
5:55
S1: and square them away as quickly as possible. This was
5:58
S1: kind of the opposite of that. It exposed a major
6:00
S1: division in their ranks. That task has just alluded to.
6:03
S1: Can you just tell our listeners what the sort of
6:04
S1: who's on which side in along this fault line?
6:08
S3: Jacinta price has lost a lot of friends in the
6:09
S3: last week on her side of the Liberal Party. Yeah.
6:12
S1: And her side being the sort of more conservative side.
6:15
S3: Her side being the right who see her as kind
6:17
S3: of emblematic of the new direction of right wing populism. She, she, she,
6:22
S3: more than any other liberal, speaks to, uh, a new
6:26
S3: and emerging bloc of voters who prefer a more forthright
6:31
S3: conservatism rather than a more stale, old school liberal version
6:35
S3: of conservatism. This gets her into trouble in in various forums,
6:39
S3: but this is what her base seeks. And they see
6:43
S3: her as the icon of that movement. And so because
6:45
S3: of that, you see people like Sarah Henderson, for example,
6:48
S3: who's a right faction liberal senator who was ousted by
6:51
S3: Sussan Ley in a reshuffle earlier this year, come out
6:54
S3: and tie herself to Jacinta Price earlier this week, even
6:57
S3: though that's, uh, going to get her into trouble in
6:59
S3: the parliamentary party. Sarah Henderson sees political value in aligning
7:04
S3: herself with price, even when price is feeling the heat.
7:06
S3: Because even though it's quite clear that price made a
7:10
S3: mistake when she made her first comments, and price admitted
7:13
S3: that even though she didn't say sorry to the Indian community,
7:16
S3: what this did was bring to life the issue of migration,
7:20
S3: and it shifted the debate away from the actual facts
7:24
S3: of what Jacinta Price said about who Indian Australians vote for,
7:28
S3: and turned it into a broader debate on the values
7:31
S3: around whether, as a movement, the liberals should support the
7:35
S3: current migration program, or whether they should be more sharp
7:38
S3: in their criticism of it and more forthright in their
7:43
S3: emphasising of, you know, Western values and the supposed deterioration
7:50
S3: in Australian society that what they call mass migration has caused.
7:55
S3: And so, even though on the facts of what Jacinta
7:57
S3: Price said, she was clearly incorrect. She brings to life
8:00
S3: this kind of cleavage. And you see right wingers in
8:03
S3: the party either reluctant to call out the argument she
8:07
S3: made and merely criticizing her for her failure to back Lee,
8:12
S3: but still pretty soft on calling out the substance of
8:17
S3: what Jacinta Price was getting to.
8:19
S1: So for some people, even though the whole incident might
8:21
S1: have been unfortunate, it did give license, I suppose, to
8:24
S1: the coalition or to the Liberal Party to start talking
8:26
S1: about so-called mass migration as an issue that voters might
8:29
S1: be concerned about.
8:30
S3: Yeah. And, um, as we talked about last week, this
8:34
S3: is a this is a fundamental part of conservative politics
8:38
S3: across the globe now. Yeah. And you see centre right
8:40
S3: parties being eaten apart by populist parties to their right. Yeah.
8:45
S3: And so this threat is not going away. One nation
8:47
S3: just increased their support at the last election and now
8:49
S3: have four senators. If they get one more, they'll be
8:51
S3: bigger than the National Party. And you saw Tony Abbott
8:54
S3: on Wednesday come out with a long Substack post, backing
8:59
S3: in Jacinta Price and saying we need to find a
9:01
S3: way as a country to talk about this. So migration
9:04
S3: is not going away as an issue. But this saga
9:07
S3: has has exposed the need for the Liberal Party to
9:10
S3: try and find palatable language to speak to the public
9:13
S3: about this issue, because there is an underlying sentiment that's
9:16
S3: that's not going away.
9:17
S2: And I think they've also like the, um, lines coming
9:20
S2: from like Lee and people like Alex Hawke, especially this week,
9:24
S2: toned down the debate. Like I think you had people
9:27
S2: buying into it more last week in the immediate aftermath
9:30
S2: of the rallies. And then as this became a really
9:32
S2: difficult problem for the liberals, and they were doing all
9:34
S2: this proactive outreach with the Indian community, you had Susan
9:38
S2: Lee and opposition immigration spokesman Paul Scarr and Julian Liza
9:43
S2: go to Harris Park in Sydney to speak and get
9:47
S2: photos with Indian leaders. And all their rhetoric was focused
9:51
S2: on the benefits of migration. And you had Alex Hawke
9:53
S2: come out earlier this week and give a very measured, um,
9:56
S2: the most measured take I've seen a liberal politician give
9:58
S2: on migration, where he kind of just tried to to
10:02
S2: make that debate go to the side while they focused
10:04
S2: on their reputation.
10:06
S8: Repairing my colleagues, party members, people across the country understand
10:10
S8: that if we're going to have a debate about migration numbers,
10:12
S8: that's fine. But we don't single out communities, and we
10:15
S8: certainly don't target the Australian Indian community because they're excellent migrants.
10:20
S8: They're our number one source country for migrants for the
10:22
S8: last 20 years of all governments. And they've been really
10:25
S8: great at integrating into Australia. So I think we've come
10:28
S8: to that view that this is just.
10:30
S1: I don't think you can underplay really the reputational damage
10:32
S1: that the Liberal Party has taken amongst Indian Australians, particularly
10:37
S1: in Sydney. I would say, Paul, we've talked before on
10:40
S1: this podcast about Susan Lee's authority and her authority over
10:43
S1: the party. Basically, she won the leadership over Angus Taylor,
10:47
S1: but only by a very slim majority. Jacinta price, of course,
10:50
S1: sort of defected from the Nats to the libs in
10:53
S1: order to back Angus Taylor. And that didn't work out.
10:56
S1: But has this week sort of helped to cement Lee's
10:59
S1: authority over the party? or has it had the opposite effect,
11:02
S1: do you think?
11:03
S3: Yeah. To answer that, I'm going to contradict something I
11:05
S3: wrote in Thursday's paper. So. And a bunch of other.
11:08
S1: Such is your prerogative as a as a journalist.
11:11
S3: Yeah. It's only it's a slight contradiction. I'm adding to
11:14
S3: my argument.
11:15
S1: You're developing it. It's evolving.
11:17
S3: Exactly. Um, a bunch of people wrote and said overnight
11:20
S3: that Susan Lee had no choice but to sack Jacinta Price. Um.
11:23
S3: And I think that's right to some extent. Like, there
11:25
S3: is a political convention that if you're in a shadow
11:27
S3: cabinet and you, you don't support the leader or you're
11:29
S3: not able to full throatedly say that you can no
11:32
S3: longer serve in that shadow ministry. And so for Susan
11:35
S3: Lee to maintain the air of authority and to create
11:39
S3: a sense that there are standards in her new party post, Dutton,
11:42
S3: who really ruled with an iron fist in some way,
11:45
S3: she had to take that step. But having said that,
11:48
S3: even among Jacinta Price's colleagues and other shadow cabinet ministers
11:52
S3: on Wednesday afternoon, hours after the Jacinta Price press conference,
11:56
S3: which they all watched, not many of them were expecting.
12:00
S3: In fact, very few of them were expecting Susan Lee
12:02
S3: to take this action. At 6:00, when we learned there
12:05
S3: was a press conference happening half an hour later in Tasmania,
12:09
S3: where Susan Lee made the call to sack her. I
12:11
S3: spoke to probably 5 or 6 shadow cabinet members, some
12:14
S3: of them very close to Lee. None of them were
12:17
S3: aware of the decision, and two of them said, oh,
12:19
S3: I don't think that's I don't think that's happening.
12:21
S2: But is that because Lee had waited so long that
12:23
S2: it just looked like she wasn't going to act, and
12:25
S2: she was going to let it slide, because I was
12:27
S2: talking to other people who thought, and this is on
12:30
S2: the conservative side as well, who thought that she should
12:32
S2: have sacked her or given an ultimatum last Friday when
12:35
S2: it happened. So I think once that didn't happen. Yeah,
12:38
S2: it looked like nothing was going to move her. But
12:40
S2: then it just became so increasingly embarrassing, I guess, to
12:44
S2: have to have your frontbencher stand there.
12:47
S1: At a certain point as leader, it's sort of about
12:49
S1: your self-respect as well, you know. Are you going to
12:51
S1: take these, are you going to take these slings and
12:53
S1: arrows from someone who's supposed to be basically an ally
12:56
S1: on the frontbench? But I want to ask you guys,
12:58
S1: isn't this just going to make these problems worse if
13:01
S1: she's having trouble sort of asserting her authority as it is.
13:04
S1: And we already know that there's like a rump of people.
13:06
S1: Maybe it's bigger than a rump who, um, aren't particularly
13:09
S1: loyal to her on the conservative side of the party.
13:12
S1: Now that Jacinta Price has liberated from frontbench solidarity, she
13:16
S1: can say whatever she wants on whatever she wants, can't she?
13:18
S1: And she nobody can sanction her for anything.
13:21
S3: And this is the point I was going to make
13:22
S3: in terms of having a second option. So the, the
13:25
S3: obvious route was to let her go because she's breached
13:29
S3: a clear convention. But Astar says there's been a week
13:34
S3: of Jacinta Price defiance that didn't lead to her sacking.
13:38
S3: If this kept going for a few more days, there
13:39
S3: would have been some embarrassing media coverage for Leigh about
13:42
S3: not taking the decisive step, but it could have blown over.
13:46
S3: Over time, it would have been tricky to continue to
13:48
S3: deal with Jacinta Price, but Sussan Ley doesn't deal with
13:50
S3: Jacinta Price much anyway, even though she's in the shadow ministry.
13:53
S3: And what what allowing her to stay in would have
13:55
S3: avoided is this sense now that there is chaos in
13:59
S3: Susan Leigh's ranks? Yes, she looks decisive. Yes, she's put
14:02
S3: her foot down. But this will fuel grievance among Jacinta
14:06
S3: Price's right wing supporters in the branches. It will fuel
14:11
S3: frustration in the conservative press. Tony Abbott and his supporters,
14:15
S3: including Peta Credlin and others, will frame this as Sussan
14:19
S3: Ley taking action against a kind of brave, uh, you know.
14:25
S2: It makes her martyr.
14:26
S3: Yeah, she turns into a martyr, which is something we
14:28
S3: wrote today. And so, yes, it would have been slightly
14:31
S3: embarrassing for Sussan Ley to keep Jacinta Price on, but
14:35
S3: the flow on consequences of this are unpredictable. And if
14:38
S3: there is a leadership coup down the track, I think
14:41
S3: Wednesday night will be seen as kind of the first domino.
14:44
S1: Yes. I just want to quickly flash forward to next week,
14:46
S1: when we're probably going to have a significant debate about
14:49
S1: climate policy, emissions reduction policy that no doubt certain members
14:53
S1: of the coalition will have a lot to say on,
14:55
S1: even though the coalition position on climate policy isn't settled. Paul,
14:59
S1: what are we expecting next week?
15:01
S3: Well, I think this might. The coalition hopes that this
15:03
S3: will be a moment where they can actually turn attention
15:06
S3: back onto the government's policies, because all we've spoken about
15:08
S3: for two months is the coalition's quite esoteric debate about
15:11
S3: net zero. Given they will not be in government any
15:14
S3: time soon and will not need to implement their net
15:16
S3: zero policy.
15:17
S1: And just to be clear, they are not officially signed
15:19
S1: on to net zero by 2050. At this point in time,
15:23
S1: they might be in a future point.
15:24
S3: They're doing a very thorough and, uh, fact based review,
15:29
S3: which might take 9 to 12 months. So we'll we'll
15:32
S3: learn late next year whether they're signed on to net zero. No,
15:34
S3: I think we'll.
15:35
S1: Because we've got plenty of time to to clear all
15:37
S1: this stuff up. Yeah.
15:38
S3: Uh, the government has its own very significant problems with
15:41
S3: its green transition, and they they will be heavily debated
15:45
S3: next week when Chris Bowen and the Prime Minister announce
15:49
S3: their updated 2035 emissions targets. We currently have a 2030 target,
15:54
S3: which the government is not on track to meet. There's
15:57
S3: huge resistance in the regions towards the solar and wind
16:00
S3: farms and transmission lines required to get this transition going.
16:04
S3: Capital is drying up in the renewables sector, and we're
16:07
S3: not building anywhere near as much as we need to
16:08
S3: to hit these targets. There is still significant progress being
16:11
S3: made and the government deserves credit for that. But electricity
16:15
S3: bills are going up. We're not meeting emissions targets. State
16:18
S3: governments are keeping coal plants online because there is a
16:21
S3: view that we need more. And there are gas shortages.
16:24
S3: There's a debate next week about whether the new target
16:27
S3: should be at 60, 65, 70, 75% mark. We're likely
16:32
S3: to see a range one figure at the lower end
16:35
S3: of ambition, one at the higher end. But importantly, we're
16:38
S3: also going to see six what they're describing as sector plans,
16:42
S3: which will outline what for example um, the electricity sector.
16:46
S3: So gas and coal companies need to do what the
16:49
S3: farming sector will need to do and what households in
16:52
S3: terms of electrification and the uptake of EVs, what all
16:55
S3: the different groups of Australian society will need to do
16:58
S3: at a, at an individual level to help hit these targets.
17:01
S1: Yeah. So we could see a bit of, um, political
17:03
S1: argument about which sector needs to sort of bear the
17:05
S1: load of emissions reduction for other parts of society. And
17:09
S1: we're also going to have probably, we think the release
17:11
S1: of this climate risk assessment by the Department of Climate Change,
17:14
S1: energy and the environment and the water. So that's meant
17:16
S1: to be pretty dire. You're hearing.
17:19
S3: Yeah. The word on that is that it's a very
17:22
S3: grim report that the government's been sitting on for months,
17:25
S3: which they're going to release the day or the day
17:27
S3: two days before the 2035 target to kind of condition
17:30
S3: the public to understand how serious the risk of not
17:34
S3: doing anything about climate change is and how those those
17:38
S3: climate risks will actually affect people at an individual level
17:42
S3: and will also affect the government's budget through the requirement
17:45
S3: to spend billions of dollars on emergency management. So we'll
17:49
S3: see that in the middle of the week. And then
17:50
S3: the 2035 target shortly after that. And then the Prime
17:53
S3: Minister will fly off to, uh, a ten day trip, uh,
17:57
S3: at the United Nations. And he's probably heading over to
17:59
S3: London as well.
18:00
S1: Yeah. Where he may or may not get a meeting
18:03
S1: with President Trump. And if he does, he'll probably know
18:05
S1: about it five minutes before. Um, it seems to be
18:09
S1: the case with President Trump. Guys, that's been a very
18:12
S1: interesting discussion. And thank you very much for joining me.
18:16
S3: Thanks, Jack.
18:16
S2: Thanks.
18:23
S1: Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong with technical assistance
18:26
S1: from Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and
18:30
S1: Tom McKendrick is our head of audio. To listen to
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