Sir Winston Churchill once said: ‘An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.’
In other words, to win in politics, you have to be willing to lose everything. You have to believe in the nation, care about the culture, believe in your own values.
At the May federal election, the Liberals didn’t believe in their own values but tried to be a pale imitation of the Labor Party. Consequently, the party now holds the least number of seats in the House of Representatives since its formation in 1944.
Ultimately, rather than pick a poor imitation, voters will go for the real thing every time.
Now is not the time for appeasement, but for courage, clarity and, above all, conviction.
The Liberals have a person with all these in their ranks. Her name is Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.
Senator Price has demonstrated time and time again that she will not bow to fashionable ideology or the manipulation of identity politics.
Senator Price has stood where few dare. She has endured condescension from progressive elites and attacks from those who claim to champion Indigenous voices, only to muzzle the ones they can’t control.
Witness the recent episode in which Foreign Minister Penny Wong took it upon herself to rebuke Senator Price about her opposition to ‘Welcome to Country’, even though Senator Price is arguably Australia’s most high-profile Indigenous parliamentarian, as well as being the epitome of reconciliation, having an Aboriginal mother and white father.
And yesterday, on National Flag Day, when Senator Price tried to tell some truths on the Australian flag, she was ordered to remove the one she had wrapped around her shoulders. In the middle of a speech calling for the burning of the national flag to be criminalised, Greens Senator Nick McKim raised a point of order about Senator Price’s use of the flag during her speech as contravening standing orders that forbid props.
So, when senators wear a keffiyeh it isn’t a prop, but when someone wears the national flag that is displayed in the chamber it is?
The member for Fowler, Dai Le, for her maiden speech to Parliament in 2022, wore a traditional Vietnamese dress known as an áo dài (usually worn on special or regal occasions), featuring an Australian flag design, and nothing, rightly, was said. As Le declared at the time, it is a representation of the country that welcomed her as a refugee and represents ‘hope, freedom and endless possibilities’.
Senator Price reminded us yesterday that, no matter our sex, ancestry, age, religion or opinion:
‘…our flag reminds us that we’re united by our common values. We’re aspirational, egalitarian and compassionate. We believe in reward for hard work. We treasure individual freedom. We respect the rule of law.’
And this includes Indigenous Australians, since the constellation of the Southern Cross on the national flag is ‘a reminder of our unique place in the world and the common geography all Australians share. Indeed, my elders from a tiny community near Tennant Creek have spoken about how the Southern Cross is part of dreaming – Jukurrpa. So contrary to the views of activists, Indigenous Australians certainly are represented by our national flag’.
Senator Price understands clearly how, across this country, the ‘forgotten people’ – those hardworking, self-reliant Australians Sir Robert Menzies once honoured – are being left behind once again. Not just by Labor and the Greens, but by the very party that was built to serve them.
The Liberals must understand, as Price does, that victory does not lie in trying to follow the political fashion of the day, but rather in getting back to fundamental principles and being prepared to fight for them.
