No campaigners have called for Senator Jacinta Price to be the next Prime Minister of Australia after the resounding defeat of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Jubilant activists credited the senator with playing a key role in the referendum victory as one of the leading figureheads in the No campaign.
The shadow minister for Indigenous Australians was front and centre after Liberal Yes-supporter Julian Leeser resigned from the post when Opposition leader Peter Dutton confirmed the Coalition would reject the proposal.
Together with Warren Mundine, senator Price undermined claims that all Australian First Nations people overwhelmingly supported the Voice.
Their message of ‘No to the Voice of division’ cut through with voters tired of the endless debate and helped seal Saturday’s overwhelming vote against the proposal.
Now the hashtag #PriceforPM is trending online in the wake of the result, with one X user posting: ‘Thank You for making me feel Australian again.
‘A true leader unites not divides.’
No campaigners have called for Senator Jacinta Price to be the next Prime Minister of Australia after the resounding defeat of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament
The shadow minister for Indigenous Australians was front and centre after Liberal Yes-supporter Julian Leeser resigned from the post when Opposition leader Peter Dutton (pictured) confirmed the Coalition would reject the proposal
‘Believe it or not, I agree with every ALP supporter who says this referendum should spell the end of Peter Dutton,’ said a No supporter.
‘Because we need Jacinta Price to be our next Prime Minister.’
‘Senator Nampijinpa Price for PM – what a great leader,’ added another. ‘She is the hero Australia needs but does not deserve.’
One said: ‘She is prepared to stand up to AusMedia and the ABC, unlike Dutton and his predecessors down to John Howard.’
But despite the support from No activists, the senator would need to overcome two major hurdles before she could make a run at the top job.
Under Australia’s constitutional convention, only members of the House of Representatives can become Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister.
As a senator in the Senate, Ms Price would need to resign, get pre-selected for a federal constituency and then win it to get a seat in the House of Representatives.
And although she is a part of the Coalition and the Opposition in Parliament at the moment, she is actually a member of the Country Liberal Party.
While they are affiliated – like the National Party, whose party room she sits in at Canberra – she would also need to switch to the main Liberal Party to secure the numbers required to become Prime Minister if the Coalition won the election.
The 42-year-old ex-TV presenter previously stood as the Country Liberal candidate for the House of Representative seat of Lingiari in the Northern Territory in 2019.
But she lost the vote to sitting Labor MP Warren Snowdon by 55 percent to 45 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.
The former deputy mayor of Alice Springs was finally elected to federal Parliament in the 2022 election as one of two senators for the Northern Territory.
On Monday, she shrugged off the calls for her to run for PM and told 2GB’s Ben Fordham she was taking things ‘one step at at time’, and focusing on her current role.
‘There’s a lot of work to be done, particularly in this portfolio,’ she said.
‘I know that myself and [Liberal South Australian] senator [Kerryn] Liddle want to focus on applying better accountability.
‘No longer can we take those ideological steps born out of grievance. It’s about common sense and practical approaches moving forward.
‘And we’re looking forward to that.’
The former deputy mayor of Alice Springs was elected to federal Parliament in the 2022 election as one of two senators for the Northern Territory
Despite support from No activists, senator Jacinta Price (pictured with Opposition leader Peter Dutton) would need to overcome two major hurdles before she could make a run at the top job
She said she would love to become involved in a bipartisan approach to tackling the problems facing Indigenous Australians if she was asked by PM Anthony Albanese.
‘I doubt I’d get a get a phone call like that, but absolutely,’ she said. ‘A bipartisan approach is probably the best way to to move going forward.
‘I don’t think the Prime Minister should be heading toward Makarrata and treaty and truth-telling him because that was part of a package of the Voice.
‘The Australian people said, “No, we don’t want that.”
‘But if they move forward on those measures, they’re not going to be moving forward with the support of the Australian people.’
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