Jacinta Nampijinpa Price facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price
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Price in 2023
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| Senator for the Northern Territory | |
| Assumed office 21 May 2022 |
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| Preceded by | Sam McMahon |
| Mayor of Alice Springs | |
| Acting 7 August 2020 – 7 September 2020 |
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| Mayor | Damien Ryan |
| Deputy Mayor of Alice Springs | |
| In office 29 September 2020 – 28 August 2021 |
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| Preceded by | Jamie DeBrenni |
| Succeeded by | Eli Melky |
| Councillor for the Town of Alice Springs | |
| In office 10 October 2015 – 28 August 2021 |
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| Preceded by | Liz Martin |
| Succeeded by | Michael Liddle |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Jacinta Yangapi Nampijinpa Price
12 May 1981 Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia |
| Political party | Liberal (federal; since 2025) Country Liberal (territory) |
| Other political affiliations |
National (federal; 2022–2025) |
| Spouse | Colin Lillie |
| Relations |
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| Children | 3 |
Jacinta Yangapi Nampijinpa Price ( born 12 May 1981) is an Australian politician from the Northern Territory. 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 Liberal–National Coalition on a federal level. Since May 2025, she sits with the Liberal Party in federal parliament, having formerly sat with the Nationals. She has been the Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs since April 2023, also assuming the position of Shadow Minister for Government Efficiency in the lead up to the 2025 election.
Price has Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic heritage – her mother is Bess Price, a former politician and Warlpiri woman. Her father is an educator with Irish ancestry. 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, who at the time was NT Minister for Local Government. In the 2019 federal election, she unsuccessfully stood for the Country Liberal Party in the Division of Lingiari.
Price's activism and views focus primarily on issues faced by Aboriginal communities, and she is a vocal advocate for conservative Aboriginal politics in Australia. She opposed the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament, and thinks that calls to change Australia Day and the Australian flag are counterproductive to Aboriginal advancement.
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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.
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.
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.
She worked with the council's Youth Action Group, and 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.
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. 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. Price called for a restoration of law and order in remote communities to combat the scourge of violence.
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 for Indigenous Australians (2023–present)
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 has been viewed with concern by prominent Indigenous Australians.
Leaving the Nationals
In federal parliament, Price sat in the National Party room upon becoming a senator, but switched to sitting in the Liberal Party room in May 2025, saying that the Liberals were her "natural home". CLP senators normally sit in the National party room, since the CLP has full voting rights with the Nationals and observer status with the Liberals.
Price announced on 11 May that she will contest the Liberal deputy leadership election. She endorsed Angus Taylor's run for the leadership, saying that the Liberals needed to stand for "forgotten people." Her decision to defect was criticized by National senators Matt Canavan and Bridget McKenzie.
Political positions and activism
Price's activism primarily focuses on issues faced by Aboriginal communities.
Aboriginal autonomy
Price generally takes a conservative view towards issues facing Aboriginal communities. Price has criticised what she terms "paternalistic" approaches to Aboriginal autonomy. She advocates for law and order, racial equality before the law, and an end to welfare dependency and what she calls an "opportunistic collectivism" in Indigenous policy.
Price criticised former Australian Labor Party leader Bill Shorten for paternalism during his visit to Barunga in 2018.
Australia Day debate
Price thinks that calls to change Australia Day and the Australian flag are counterproductive to Aboriginal advancement.
In 2018, Price supported the "Save Australia Day" campaign promoted by One Nation politician Mark Latham. In 2021, she again criticised the push to change the date of Australia Day, saying that changing the date would not improve the lives of Aboriginal people. Price described Australia Day as a "magical day" and rejected claims that the day commemorates the subjugation of Aboriginal people.
Voice to Parliament
Price opposed the Albanese government's proposal for a referendum to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament within the Australian Constitution on the grounds that it would be a racially divisive bureaucracy that couldn't be dismantled, that it would set Indigenous and non-Indigenous people on an unequal footing, and would imply that Aboriginal people are a "separate entity to the rest of Australia".
"No" campaign
Price fronted the "No to Voice" campaign. She, along with her Scottish husband, featured in an advertisement that talked about her life, and her upbringing in Alice Springs, and advocated for people to vote against a "race-based referendum". In the advertisement, she said she did not want her family to be divided along the lines of race. In a Sky News interview, she called the Indigenous Voice to Parliament a "bureaucratic structure which I think is divisive and dangerous and undermines democracy as we know it", but mentioned she supports the recognition of Indigenous Australians in the constitution. The Australian electorate voted against the proposal 60% to 40%.
'Make Australia Great Again'
During a campaign rally in Perth on 12 April 2025, Price said she wanted to "make Australia great again”. When asked during a press conference if this was a nod to the “Make America Great Again” slogan most recently popularised by US President Donald Trump and the broader MAGA movement, Price claimed she “hadn’t realised” what she had said. National Party leader David Littleproud called Price’s phrasing a “slip of the tongue”.
However, one day later, The Guardian obtained a photo shared on Price's Facebook page that showed her and her husband Colin Lillie each wearing "Make America Great Again" baseball caps while Price also held a Donald Trump Christmas tree ornament. In response, Price claimed the picture to be "a stunt" and a "joke in her family", and criticised reporters for digging through her private social media.
Awards and recognition
Price was presented with the inaugural Freedom and Hope Award at the Australian Conservative Political Action Conference held in Sydney in October 2022. Crikey described her as "the breakout star" of the event.
During her artistic career, Price was named Artist of the Year at the NAIDOC Awards in 2011, and was nominated for Most Promising New Talent in Music in the 2012 Deadly Awards. Her album Dry River, was a finalist in the folk category for the NT Song of the Year Awards in 2012.
Personal life
Price has three sons from a first marriage. By 2008 she had met Colin Lillie, a Scottish-Australian singer and songwriter, whom she married in a traditional ceremony before being married under Australian law. Price is a stepmother to Lillie's son from a previous relationship.
Outside of elected office, Price served as Indigenous program director for the Centre for Independent Studies, a libertarian think tank based in Sydney.
