Jacinta Nampijinpa Price slams push for new Voice-style Indigenous body

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has accused the Greens of ignoring the wishes of Australians by pushing for a new Voice-style Indigenous body.

The Coalition's spokesperson for Indigenous Australians said the proposal to create a Truth and Justice Commission showed the party was 'hellbent on pushing ideology' rather than listening to Australians.

'The Greens aren't interested on what Australia has to say on any issues,' Senator Price told Sky News interviewer Peta Credlin on Monday night.

'They would prefer to continue down a path of division within our country, of reinvention of culture. 

'They infantilise Indigenous Australians and are not focusing on meeting the needs of our most marginalised, nor looking at improving economic independence for our marginalised Indigenous Australians.'

The Greens have introduced a bill to establish a 10-member commission, which would spend four years looking into 'historic and ongoing injustices' towards Indigenous Australians. 

The proposal echoes the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which envisioned the Voice as an advisory body to parliament as well as a 'truth-telling commission' and finally a treaty between Indigenous Australians and the Commonwealth. 

Senator Price argued that with over 60 per cent of voters rejecting the Voice in last October's referendum, Labor would be ill-advised to continue on with a truth-telling commission.

'Labor in their right mind shouldn't support it,' she said.

'They clearly understand the result of the referendum, it would not benefit them to support this but you never know, in desperation they may choose to do so. 

'They haven't been clear with the Australian people, but they need to come clean on what they intend to do in terms of the truth-telling commission that they said they still support.

'Whether it's to the Greens, whether it's some other measures that they haven't revealed yet.' 

While the Albanese government has not committed to the truth-telling commission, it has pledged $27million to fund the Makarrata Commission, which is exploring a proposed treaty between Indigenous people and the Commonwealth.

Senator Price accused the government of being 'very sneaky' about its Indigenous  policy plans since the referendum defeat. 

'We haven't heard much, in fact, [anything] at all, on anything to do with Indigenous policy ever since the referendum,' she said.

'There's been a whole raft of problems, a whole raft of issues, but nothing proposed going forward as to how they're supposed to, again, support our most marginalised Indigenous Australians.'

In introducing its bill to create a Truth and Justice Commission, Greens First Nations spokesperson Dorinda Cox said such a body was even more important 

'People need hope, they need some hope that we want to progress as a nation,' she said.

'We want to make sure that we are making inroads into those conversations. We're providing a very bold and courageous action in bringing a bill to the parliament that sees this enshrined in legislation.

'This issue is not going away, and we need the Labor government to back this in.'