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It seems that the Liberal Party’s leading figure in their campaign against an Indigenous Voice To Parliament may actually think she’s a contestant on a reality TV talent show.
After 6 months of spectacular performances for TV cameras, Jacinta Price is certainly ‘winning the voice’ – with a magnetic presence that Australia’s commercial news networks just can’t seem to get enough of.
In fact, you’d think there wasn’t anyone else out there capable of jumping on a stage or in front of a camera.
However, her increasingly daring performances have begun to raise questions, as even her own colleagues grow concerned that she’s starting to bite off more than she can chew.
This comes just days after Price’s nationally broadcasted appearance at the National Press Club in Canberra, where she boldly delcared that there there are “no ongoing negative impacts” of colonisation on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, only a “positive impact”.
This imaginative statement marks an interesting pivot from Price’s usual artistry, which mostly revolves around her challenging political opponents to join her on a visit to Alice Springs to see how bad things are.
Price’s National Press Club performance seems to clash directly with the Liberal Party’s reluctant admission that Indigenous people do indeed face disadvantages and disparities in health and education.
This particular song and dance has left both opponents and temporary allies wondering if she realises that she’s centred herself in the middle of a National referendum, or does she literally think she’s a contestant on Channel Seven’s ‘The Voice’.
This would not be surprising, given Senator Price’s very recent history as a Top End RnB sensation that performed under the name Sassy J.
After enjoying a hip hop career in the clubs and festival circuit of the Northern Territory, she launched her own solo album Dry River in 2013,
The album, which features the now-senator rocking a mohawk on its cover, was described in her Triple J Unearthed profile as a mix of Blues, Soul, Roots and Folk that “has been compared to that of artist Tracy Chapman”.
Before music, she found fame as a children’s TV show host on Imparja’s Yamba the Honeyant.
This varied and illustrious career as an aspiring triple-threat performer could explain Sassy J’s undying quest for stardom, in whatever field she finds herself in.
Unfortunately, after 6 months of dominating The Voice, the up and coming songstress is yet to see any of the red judges chairs. Just like her mate Warren Mundine is unlikely to see one of those Liberal senate chairs he’s been promised.
