Government responses inadequate two months on from Kumanjayi Little Baby

Alice Springs community leaders still devastated by the alleged abduction and murder of Kumanjayi Little Baby in April are warning that both the Northern Territory and federal governments are still not making enough improvements in services that could help prevent similar cases.

Note: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the image of an Indigenous person who has died, used with the permission of their family.

They are calling for better resourced child protection services and better targeting of government money intended to make life safer for families in town camps and surrounding remote communities.

Independent NT MP Robyn Lambley, who helped in the massive search for the child, said eight weeks on neither the NT nor federal government responses have been adequate.

"The town is still trying to recover and to make sense of what has happened; we're looking for hope and direction from our leaders, we're looking at changes that might stop this thing from happening again," she said.

'Nowhere to stay': Urgent calls for more housing

The NT Police said Kumanjayi Little Baby's mother was visiting Alice Springs from her remote community when she put her daughter to bed at a town camp house, where people were drinking, before the child went missing.

Mrs Lambley called for an audit of federal and NT government spending, including the $4 billion being poured into upgrading Indigenous housing, saying living conditions and safety in town camps did not appear to have improved.

"People more and more want accountability, and particularly in the Aboriginal welfare space and housing space — where is the money going?" she asked.

"We've got to stop somewhere, and make changes, significant changes, or in another 20 years' time, we'll be telling the same story."

Mrs Lambley said dozens of new houses in town camps had been built in in recent years — jointly funded by the Commonwealth and built by the former NT Labor government — but overcrowding was still contributing to unsafe conditions.

"We're told, through what happened to Kumanjayi Little Baby, that that's still an enormous problem, nothing has changed, apparently," she said.

"We also know the massive pressure these people are under, the lack of security, the people wandering in and out, making themselves at home, and using and abusing town camp resources."

Her calls echoed those of federal Coalition leaders Angus Taylor and Kumanjayi Little Baby's aunt Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who have been advocating for an audit of government funding after visiting the child's family last week.

Federal Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy has rejected the audit calls, saying government funding is already regularly audited.

Ms McCarthy said the Albanese Government's key response — its continued rollout of $250 million in federal funds allocated three years ago to tackle crime, dysfunction and poverty in Alice Springs — is hitting the mark.

"We've made significant investments in the areas of family and community safety, in terms of infrastructure, especially in education, we're supporting community safety through youth engagement and diversion programs," she said.

Despite the federal minister's statements, Graeme Smith, an Alice Springs Arrernte native title holder and governance officer at Lhere Artepe Aboriginal Corporation, said a lot of government funding is not making an impact.

"We want to know where the money's going in Alice Springs because it appears a lot of people are being funded, but for what? And a lot of programs are being duplicated,"

he said.

Mr Smith said years of underinvestment in remote community housing and health was pushing people to crowd unsafely into Alice Springs town camps, although he acknowledged the federal and NT governments had recently opened more temporary visitor accommodation in the town.

He also said remote prisoners were often released into Alice Springs with no means to get back to remote communities.

NT Corrections said while prisoners "don't automatically get transport assistance", the department does help them "engage with families and local organisations to assist with travel back to their home communities".

Indigenous leaders push back on proposed child protection changes

The NT Government's key response to Kumanjayi Little Baby's death has been to reiterate it is changing its child protection laws to prioritise child safety over trying to keep Aboriginal kids with Indigenous carers.

It is also investigating whether its child protection department failed to respond properly to the five-year-old's situation after it had been reported to them in the past.

Mr Smith said the law change could remove more Indigenous kids without improving safety.

"It's the wrap-around services for these families that need to start working for the mother and the children," he said.

"If the systems get better, families will not be in the position that we have to talk about taking kids off them."

Mrs Lambley said the child protection department — which according to independent inquiries, including the 'Growing them strong, together' report, has been under-resourced and overloaded for decades — urgently needs more money.

"Because, like in the case of Kumanjayi Little Baby, perhaps she was identified as being at risk, but something happened and she fell through the cracks," she said.

Alice Springs Indigenous leader and chief executive of the children's advocacy body SNAIC Catherine Liddle agreed that rather than law changes, more child protection and support program resources were needed.

She pointed to NT government data which shows almost one in three NT children in care suffer further harm there.

"It is a department and a workforce that has been under incredible pressure for a very long time, and if it is under-resourced it cannot respond to the need in community," she said.

"We are still failing children and families — you can see it when you walk through our town and when you go into remote communities, that we aren't providing what children and families need to be thriving."

Asked if the NT Government would allocate more money to child protection services, the minister Robin Cahill said she "won't pre-empt the outcome" of the government's review into the department.

Ms McCarthy said this was the responsibility of the NT government, and the federal government was not committing further funds at this stage.

Alice Springs Warlpiri leader Bess Price, a relative of Kumanjayi Little Baby and former NT child protection minister, said she would like both levels of government to consult more with the community on the changes needed.

"The families need to meet with people who are part of the politics of Australia to get an understanding between both on how best we can all work together," she said.

She said the child's mother and grandmother have welcomed politicians visiting Alice Springs and hearing their story, but it had not made their lives easier.

"They are just waiting for the funeral to take place, and it's hard, because they're just trying to get on, and find ways to survive, until then."