Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand today very, very distressed at the circumstances that have taken place in my home-town community of Alice Springs. We are in such a dire situation. We have hit absolute crisis point. Leaders from my community, our mayor, has called for the Northern Territory Labor government to be dissolved and for the federal government to step in. This is how tough it has become. We have hundreds of people rioting in our streets and acting out violently. This is following a spate of violence, crime, death and bashings of 16-year-olds. It was only a couple of days ago that I stood here to condemn traditional cultural payback in my home community and the treatment of young Indigenous women. The violence has escalated to the worst we have ever seen, certainly the worst in my lifetime growing up in Alice Springs. Everybody is saying this in my community; everybody from all backgrounds, all walks of life have had enough.

The problem is that this Labor government does not have what it takes to fix the situation in Alice Springs. If they were serious about it, they would have fixed it a long time ago. They would have done it at the outset. They would have done it when we were calling for investment into the primary school that takes care of our most vulnerable kids in our community, kids who are now dying in stolen vehicles on our streets. What more needs to happen? There's a double standard in this country. There's a double standard where the lives of Indigenous Australians mean nothing to this government. Stand up and pretend you care about Indigenous Australians—with all your platitudes—acknowledgements to country and respecting elders past, present and emerging; whatever the hell that means. It means nothing.

The most marginalised in our community continue to suffer and now it is bleeding out into the rest of the community. Our businesses are packing up and leaving. Long-term residents are leaving. We have had a gutful. The Territory government must admit they have failed the people of Alice Springs and the Northern Territory. They have to send in the riot squad, the ADF—whoever it takes—to bring calm to our streets, to ensure that this crime does not continue. I am telling you now as a Warlpiri woman, who has lived life connected to my culture, that cultural payback exists—all the deniers out there, whether it is those in the ABC, whether it's those across the chamber who want to romanticise my culture, the culture that I live and that I've lived with all my life.

This situation will get worse if it is not dealt with and dealt with immediately. How many more deaths have to occur? Does it matter? They're just Indigenous kids, right? If we had actually decided—instead of not removing Indigenous kids from dysfunctional circumstances—they might not be committing crimes, fast-tracking to incarceration and dying on our streets. The racism is the fact that they are left in dysfunction because there are weak leaders who are more worried about votes than they are about saving lives. And I have had a gutful, as has my home-town community. I've had a gutful, as has my home-town community. Prime Minister Albanese needs to go back to Alice Springs, he needs to deploy the ADF and he needs to have a presence in our community to make the people of Alice Springs feel some sense of safety once and for all. We have all experienced the violence. I have had to physically exert myself and put myself into a violent situation to stop a woman from being bashed. I've done this myself. I've been on the ground, I've been in the dirt, my home has been broken into. The member for Lingiari's home has been broken into.

What does it take for some commonsense with regard to the rights of Australians? We might be Aboriginal people but we are Australian citizens and we deserve to have the same expectations and the same level of rights as any other Australian. If this was happening in the streets of Marrickville, I have no doubt that the Minister for Indigenous Australians and our Prime Minister would act very swiftly because, ultimately, their votes would be what's important to them. But we're in the bush. We're out of sight and we're out of mind. Enough is enough. We need help. Do your job, Labor.