Jacinta Price, Warren Mandeen fire warning shots at Albanians

Nationals Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa-Pryce has warned Prime Minister Anthony Albanese not to expect First Nations people to vote ‘yes’ in a vote for parliament.

Senators Nampijinpa Price and Warren Mundine, both leaders of the official “No” campaign, spoke Wednesday morning with representatives of indigenous communities across the country at the Capitol.

They said the Aboriginal people did not want division or separation, as they say their voices are threatened.

“We unite as Australians under the (Australian) flag. and immigrants,” said Senator Nampijinpa Price.

“We are one Australia.”

She calls for an audit of the government’s indigenous agencies, believing the voice will be just another level of bureaucracy on top of all the “already failed” layers.

She criticized the government for not consulting widely enough, saying most indigenous communities knew little about the Voice Conspiracy and what it was trying to achieve.

Instead, the fear of these communities was that it would further divide and undermine all work to bridge the gap.

“We have overcome racial segregation in this country and putting that in our founding documents is not the right thing to do going forward,” she said.

Social worker Morisa Kearney, granddaughter of the Stolen Generation, agreed with Sen. Nampijinpa Price, saying that existing representative bodies that were supposed to represent indigenous peoples “ignore” them.

“Why don’t our politicians… go out to remote communities? In those communities, no one knows about Boyce,” Ms Carney said.

“And what about our poor children, the next generation?

“We are all Australians here. We are meant to work together, not against each other.”

That came when a deal was struck between Labor and the Liberals over a referendum machine law that would need to be passed by parliament to send Australians to the ballot box later this year.

Liberals agreed to support the bill in the Senate with amendments including a physical pamphlet outlining both yes and no cases.

Senator Nampijinpa Price said he had not yet considered the details of the Liberal Party’s amendment, but said he was prepared to cross the floor if it did not address her concerns, including equal funding.

Elsewhere, Mr Albanese is understood to have taken the final referendum questions proposed by the Referendum Working Group.

Final questions will be announced publicly during this two-week conference.