Jacinta price destined to be in the public eye as she admits ‘I've always loved being a performer'

West Australian

18-05-2025

One of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price's favourite things to do is play boardgames with her family — lately a game called Chameleon has been popular.
Price may love it, but it is hard to imagine the firebrand Senator being much good at a game that, as the name suggests, is all about trying to blend in.
Being part of the wallpaper is not exactly her style.
Forget politics, Senator Price has been standing out from the crowd since she was a young girl who fell in love with music.
'Music has always just been a part of who I am and the way I've expressed myself,' Price told The Sunday Times at the tail end of a tumultuous week and a half that saw her defect from the Nationals to the Liberal Party and a blink-and-you-missed-it tilt at its deputy leadership.
'I sang in the choir, I started to learn the violin when I was about nine-years old. . . and then I was involved in a hip-hop group in my teenage years when I thought classical music was no longer as cool as hip-hop.
'I guess I've always loved being a performer onstage and with my music. . . it was quite empowering to be on stage, to feed off the energy of an audience.'
These days, although Senator Price sometimes gets pulled onstage by her Scottish singer-songwriter husband Colin Lillie — the two worked on the TV show Yamba's Playtime together — and admits to contributing 'the odd lyric,' the closest she gets to performing is politics.
'My favourite part of the job is engaging with audiences around the country,' she said. 'And so there is an element of that, there is an element of connecting to an audience and electrifying an audience through being able to speak about things that I'm passionate about.
'I think, you know, music and having such a career onstage has lent itself to stepping into that, I guess, with more ease, perhaps than others might.'
Senator Price, who went from entertainer to Alice Springs councilwoman in 2015, has been in the spotlight since entering Federal Politics in 2022, following in the footsteps of her mother Bess Price, a former politician and Warlpiri woman.
Part of that is down to her high-profile role leading the No campaign against the Voice to Parliament. The other part is likely down to her forthright — and, yes, polarising — personality.
This week, she made headlines when she threw her hat in the ring to be the new Liberal deputy leader under Angus Taylor, only to step back when Sussan Ley narrowly won the leadership ballot.
Asked how she switches off after a working week like that, Senator Price's answer was surprising — 'cleaning.'
'I've been cleaning the house and working on my yard in order to prepared for my youngest son's 18th birthday tomorrow (on Saturday),' she said. 'Generally family time means a lot to me, being able to hang out with, whether it's my husband or my sons and their partners.
'We're a family that loves board games, various different kinds. So we love that sort of thing.
'We love walking through the walking tracks and the hills that's around Alice Springs with our dogs and getting out bush whenever we get the opportunity.'
Senator Price's youngest son becoming an adult is one of two looming milestones for Price that have nothing to do with Canberra.
In August she will become a grandmother when her eldest has his first child.
'I'm really, really excited,' she said.
Top of the agenda? 'To spoil them rotten.'
Earlier this year the singer turned children's entertainer turned council woman turned Federal politician mad another addition to her increasingly lengthy resume: author, with the release of her memoir, Matters of the Heart.
Senator Price said nobody tried to talk her out of baring it all on the page but there were moments of self-doubt.
'There was the moment of, sort of, am I sure this is what I really want to do?' she said.
'But then, you know, I thought, there's no point hiding from the person you are and the experiences that have built you as a human being and your character.
'And I think it's important, because quite often, particularly in this role, your detractors want to dehumanise you and I thought it was really important to point out, well, actually, I am human and I have made mistakes in my life and I have overcome adversity and deep challenges and that is part of what it means to be human.
'Mind you, day before launch day, I kind of thought to myself: well, what have I gone and done? Too late, now it's going to be out there.
'We'll have to see how the next one goes down the track. . . the experience of politics will definitely have to be part of that.'
Canberra — consider yourself warned.