Australia’s Network Ten has given a private apology to Jacinta Nampijinpa Price after the indigenous senator was heard being mocked by TV host Lisa Wilkinson in leaked audio.
The audio, reported last week but recorded back in 2021, featured Wilkinson apparently mocking the Coalition party and struggling to pronounce “Nampijinpa.”
And Wilkinson can be heard saying the Liberal party preselected “over 20 new and wonderfully diverse and strong female candidates like, and what’s her name, Nam… Nampinjumba? (sic). She’s an Indigenous woman.”
Another voice on the audio, David Sharaz (the partner of Brittany Higgins, a potential interviewee for Wilkinson’s show The Project) was heard replying: “She clearly got in. Clearly it was a safe seat.”
And producer Angus Llewellyn was heard adding: “See, we know brown people.”
Price spoke out on Friday, telling Australian radio 2GB the comments were “racist” and “derogatory.”
“I would absolutely expect an apology from the Ten Network, from Lisa Wilkinson herself. That would be the decent thing to do.”
Politicians in Australia joined in demanding a public apology from Network Ten.
A spokesperson for Network Ten told Guardian Australia that Price had graciously accepted the apology as it issued a separate statement:
“Network 10 regrets any distress caused by the unauthorised publication of these intended private conversations.”
The leaked recordings are the latest twist in a series of court cases that have dominated Australian headlines since 2019, when Brittany Higgins alleged that former political staffer Bruce Lehrmann raped her inside Parliament House in February of that year. Lehrmann has always denied the accusations against him. The first criminal trial was aborted in 2022 due to jury misconduct and a second trial saw prosecutors drop charges over fears for Higgins’ mental health. Lehrmann is now suing Network Ten and Wilkinson over their initial reporting of Higgins’ rape allegations.
