Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has lashed online trolls for leaking her personal phone number on Twitter, and said it sparked an influx of “revolting” messages.
Addressing her first National Press Club as the federal opposition spokesperson for Indigenous Australians, Ms Price said she has become a target for abuse in her campaign against a Voice to Parliament.
Since her number was leaked on Wednesday, she said she has been “absolutely bombarded with the most revolting messages, voicemail messages that you could think of”.
“What I can say is that from the moment this referendum was launched by our Prime Minister, our nation has been divided,” she said.
“We have seen ugliness on display, from right across the board. I know myself and Warren Mundine have been the subject of horrible racial vilification.”
Ms Price said she held Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responsible for the division.
“The Prime Minister needs to take responsibility for the division that we’re now confronted with,” she said.
“He chose to take this path to divide our nation to not undergo the appropriate processes to involve the Australian people and constitutional conventions and to bring everybody along for the ride.
“I condemn all kinds of horrible behaviour that has come out as a result of this.”
Ms Price, who is also a key spokesperson for anti-Voice outfit Fair Australia, also used her address to lash the “three lies” behind the upcoming Voice referendum.
She said the Voice was underpinned by the false believe that Indigenous Australia don’t currently have a Voice, that all Indigenous Australia want a Voice, and the it was “ ”just an advisory board”.
Her speech comes as Australians will flock to the polls on October 14, where they will vote to change the constitution to: “Recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice”.
She said that while Australians desperately “want to do the right thing for their fellow Australians”, she questioned the referendum’s lack of consultation.
Ms Price said there was a lack of “constitutional conventions to understand from the Australian people what recognition might look like, (and how) that would provide a majority of Australia’s support toward recognition.”
“The voice is flawed in its foundations. It is built on lies and an aggressive attempt to fracture our nation’s founding document,” she said.
The Country Liberal senator criticised the government for “moral posturing and virtue signalling” on Indigenous affairs.
Although Ms Price said she was in support of a “recognition of Indigenous Australians,” her issue of the proposal was over the “unknown Voice entity” associated with an official Voice.
“I support the idea of using common sense approaches toward improving the lives of our most marginalised,” she said.
“What I think hasn’t happened throughout this current process is the Labor government haven’t held constitutional conventions to understand from the Australian people what recognition might look like, (and how) that would provide a majority of Australia’s support toward recognition.”
Instead, if the vote on October 14 fails, Ms Price said she would want to “fight to bring accountability in existing structures and programs”.