Be careful what you pray for, you just might get it
Be careful what you pray for, you might regret it
You get your hands on that glittering prize
Now everybody’s coming at you from every side
Paul Kelly, 2008
Be Careful What You Pray For
Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Price had a good election last week.
Price – first elected to the Senate in 2022 as representative of the local Country Liberal Party (the CLP) – was returned to the red benches and had, until Thursday last week, accepted the long-standing convention that requires that NT senators “sit” (and vote) with the conservative National Party while in Canberra.
The National Party is the poor cousin of the Liberal Party with which it has long joined to form coalition governments when they can make up the numbers.
On the Monday evening following the election Price threw a cat among the political pigeons when interviewed by Sky News “after dark” host and self-confessed Price fan-boy Chris Kenny.
Kenny asked if Price would follow convention and stay loyal to the Nationals.
Kenny: I’ll give you a leave pass on declaring your hand for leadership because you’ve got to wait for those votes to be counted but you didn’t rule out trying to switch to the Liberal Party room.
Price’s response could at best be described as a lightly dressed word salad.
Price: Yeah look, as I said there’s a lot to consider right now, um at this point in time … what we need to be able to do is be in a strong position going forward so that we can rebuild as a Coalition you know and as part of the Nats we need to support the Libs in that direction absolutely and …
Kenny closed with the following.
Kenny: Jacinta Nampijinpa Price there pointedly not ruling out not switching to the Liberal Party. Imagine if she was in the Liberal Party, that’ll help them fight perhaps. We’ll see what unfolds there.
It looks like someone read Price the riot act overnight, and on Tuesday evening she was back on Sky News, interviewed by another fan, former Liberal Party powerbroker Peta Credlin.
Price explained the operation of the convention to Credlin.
Price: … the convention … in the CLP is that the first Senate ticket … is to sit with the National’s party room, the second Senate ticket with the Liberal’s party room, [the member for] Lingiari is to sit with the Nationals and Solomon with the Liberals.
Credlin chased after the proposition left dangling by Chris Kenny the night before.
Credlin: … And you’re not going to challenge that? I mean this is your second time around … you are still within your term but you’re not going to challenge that? You will sit with the National Party?
Price: … that is what is expected of me from the CLP and obviously from the Nationals as well and there still is … we’re still waiting for the dust to settle …We’re still reeling from the outcome obviously … I wanna make sure … as I said to Chris last night, I’m a fighter and as part of the Coalition …
Credlin: I know you are …
Price: … I wanna make sure that we can fight back and come back stronger.
Credlin: Alright … alright … I can hear my audience screaming down the television … Jacinta Price they want you there!
By Thursday evening Price announced she was jumping ship to the Liberal Party, apparently with the encouragement of former Prime Minister (and former Credlin boss) Tony Abbott.
Meanwhile in Darwin the Australian Electoral Commission has yet to finish counting NT Senate votes and won’t until late in the week.
Whether, and if so, to what extent, Price told either the National or the Country Liberal parties of her intentions is unclear at the time of writing.
Both parties would have provided her with substantial financial and logistical support during the election campaign and the course of her tenure as Senator.
For the Nationals Price’s defection could mean the loss of its “major party” status in the Senate with consequential effects upon its administrative capacity and political effectiveness.
For the CLP the effect is less clear at this time but if the considerable local animus generated by Price’s decision is sustained it could mean loss of support from the Party – or worse.
Watch that space.
As the convention set out by Price indicates, the push-me-pull-you stoush over where she sits in Canberra has its roots deep in CLP history.
In 1974 the NT had the unfortunate luxury of having two conservative parties competing with each other in the NT Legislative Council, the predecessor to the post-1978 self-governing Legislative Assembly.
Common-sense and raw politics prevailed and in 1974 the merged Country Liberal Party was born, the bastard offspring of the shotgun marriage of the Australian Country Party NT branch with the NT Liberal Party branch.
Following NT self-government in 1978 the CLP was long – and rightly – regarded as “the natural party of government” of the NT, though like all turbulent relationships there has been no shortage of violent internecine disputes, often reflective of its bipolar roots.
These inherent flaws persist to this day, with the Country front half of the beast – representing pastoralists and other rednecks out bush, and the Liberal arse end consisting in large part of townies – solicitors, accountants and their shiny-bum-bureaucratic ilk based in the cities and towns.
Price’s 2025 Senate election campaign started off well enough, spending the first week in Darwin doing local media and socials and hosting the odd blow-in politician from south.
Like the fella once said, “Ain’t that a kick in the head?”
On the Saturday of the first week there was an unfortunate incident at a Darwin footy oval where Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton booted a lovely drop punt that unfortunately crashed into a local camera-operator and gave him a nasty head wound and the Dutton bloody headlines for days.
Dutton’s response, “Oh got him, got him” was the political own goal of the year.
After a few dull days on the stump at Uluru (apparently the only remote NT community Price made it to for the whole campaign), Alice Springs and back in Darwin Price headed for Perth where she was slotted as a rising star at the coalition campaign launch.
At a supporter’s event before the campaign launch proper Price rattled off a spray that would derail the rest of her campaign and was a free kick to the “vultures” – Price’s description – of the press pack.
Make Australia Grate Again …
As The Guardian reported, Price told the event:
I’m so proud to be able to stand beside [the candidates] and to ensure that we can make Australia great again, that we can bring Australia back to its former glory, that we can get Australia back on track.
Price doubled down in the following media conference, telling the press pack she hadn’t “even realised” she’d said the words, “make Australia great again”.
Begone to Coventry with you!
On Monday following the election Chris Kenny on Sky News was one of the few able to ask Price how she felt being “benched” following her comments in Perth.
Kenny: You must have been so frustrated during the campaign. You were hardly front and centre … then [after the Make Australia Great Again gaffe] … and you kinda disappeared again … your own lack of prominence in the campaign and this linking to Trump must have frustrated you enormously.
Price’s response was equivocal at best.
More than a few hours and days otherwise better spent were lost to walking back, around or away from Price’s faux pas.
Price was promptly banished to Coventry. Her itinerary for the rest of April was a country-motel-breakfast and rubber-chicken-dinner tour of far-flung electorates in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia, far from the prying eyes, ears, cameras and microphones of the vultures in the press pack.
And well away from Peter Dutton, Nationals leader David Littleproud and her own constituents in the Northern Territory.
MY analysis in Part Two of this piece has been compiled from online media, socials and anecdotal accounts of Price’s travel during this time.
The Northern Myth reached out to the CLP’s secretariat and president Natasha Griggs seeking details of Price’s itinerary and other related matters without response.
You can read about the rest of Senator Price’s campaign in Part Two of this piece.
Please feel free to post any comments below – I’d love to hear your thoughts (please keep them civil)
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