Senator Nampijinpa Price talks to Mark Levy, 2GB

4 May 2026

Subjects: Alice Springs; Kumanjayi Granites; town camps; child sexual abuse; Indigenous community safety; Royal Commission; government response

 

E&OE……………

MARK LEVY:

Senator, good morning to you.

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

Good morning, Mark. Good morning to your listeners.

MARK LEVY:

Can I start by, on behalf of all of the listeners, offering our heartfelt condolences and sympathies to you. Kumanjayi Little Baby was your niece, Senator. Can I just start by asking how you're going and how your community's feeling at the moment?

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

I think everyone's just, it's just a numbness, a real sense of devastation I think for the whole town. It's just so close to home for everyone. We are a very tight-knit community. You know, most of us know the person who came across her during the search, and it was community members who were out there searching, and it's just, it is going to take a while to I think really come to terms with this.

MARK LEVY:

Jacinta, I shared on Friday with my listeners a very powerful piece you wrote for The Australian newspaper and I read out virtually all of it because it's something that I think everybody needs to hear. But before we just talk about what needs to change and the fact that we need at least a Royal Commission into this, I just wanted to play you some comments made by Malarndirri McCarthy, the Minister for Indigenous Australians, because she was asked if it's time for more of a conversation about people living in camps like Old Timers Camp in Alice Springs. So, this is what she had to say.

[CLIP STARTS]

MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY:

Now's not that time, Sally, now's not time at all and now's the time to come together as a community in sorry business and be with his mum and her son as they prepare to bury their daughter.

[CLIP ENDS]

MARK LEVY:

That was Malarndirri McCarthy on the ABC over the course of the weekend, Senator Price. I would have thought, if not now, when?

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

Precisely. I mean, when you have that level of responsibility that you've been put there by the Australian people, I would have thought there would have been a sense of more urgency coming from the minister in this situation. What I've always been frustrated with is the lack of appetite from Labor to do anything about these situations. I mean the minister has previously been the Child Protection Minister in the Northern Territory Government. She's held very important portfolios before in this space. And so has Marion Scrimgeour, the former Deputy Chief Minister of the Northern Territory. I mean, they went through the Territory government in power and now they're in power at the very top in this nation. And a little girl's life has been taken away and all they can do is deflect right now and use the excuse of sorry business. I don't think that's good enough. We are all grieving, we as her family are all grieving, but this is an issue that I have raised over and over and over and over again and even when a life is taken from us under horrific circumstances and way too young, they still want to deflect. It's like get out of the way and let those of us who actually want to do something about this situation step in and do so if simply what you're saying is you are not capable of actually bringing about the action that needs to take place.

MARK LEVY:

Jacinta, if I'm to think of the aftermath of the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, the Prime Minister was dragged kicking and screaming to set up a Royal Commission. In my opinion, he needs to be dragged kicking and screaming again to another Royal Commission into the treatment of children and vulnerable women in these remote Indigenous communities. If we are to have a Royal Commission, what do we need to look at, in your opinion, as someone who has experienced living in remote Indigenous communities, what needs to change and what areas need to be looked at?

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

Well, we need to hear from people in those circumstances themselves. A lot of the time you hear from individuals who have held, I suppose, had the microphone under these conditions. We need to hear from those who are rarely heard and we need to give them the protection to be listened to because there are a lot of vulnerable women who would be scared to come forward, but in a Royal Commission they'd be given the opportunity to privately voice what they have been through, the horrific circumstances that they have suffered, that their children have suffered, at the hands of perpetrators in these environments, to understand precisely what their lives are like in conditions like town camps. I mean town camps, we need to have that hard conversation about what we do with them because I know if we had concentrations of places like that in cities, they'd be bulldozed, and the expectation would be that people would become part of the community more wholly. So there's not these petri dishes of where there's violence and there's crime and there is alcohol consumption and sexual abuse taking place. These are the things that we need to understand, but we need to stop the segregation of our children's lives, Aboriginal children being treated differently. Largely because of what the Stolen Generation has stipulated, these children are suffering because many of them have not been removed from horrific circumstances. For those women, they haven't been able to be provided the opportunity to bring up their children in better circumstances either. I don't know how often I have to talk about the fact that our kids are treated differently because they're Aboriginal kids. There's a culture within child protection where I've heard stories of those who are frustrated to work in that space, who have heard other people working in that place say things like, Aboriginal kids need to stay where they are, you know, whether it's sexual abuse they're suffering from, they need to understand what resilience is so they can overcome it that way. I'm sorry, but what other child would this expectation be placed upon in Australia in 2026? I don't know how many times there's been headlines in the Northern Territory of the sexual abuse of children, in remote communities over and over and over again. There's been a denial from left-wing media, there's denial from Labor parliamentarians from State and Federal, from Territory and Federal who accuse you of conflating this issue and saying, "well, it exists everywhere", well, sorry, but the same reason that they say that, you know, incarceration levels are disproportionate for Aboriginal adults, well, sexual abuse levels are disproportionate for Aboriginal children. That is fact. But you don't see the same outcry from these people when it comes to that. Because unless there's a white perpetrator involved, there's just a lack of interest to pursue these issues and take action.

MARK LEVY:

Well, admittedly, I think this is a cop-out for those that suggest it. Do you think that there is a reluctance from people within government and within these organisations to act because they fear being labelled a racist, Jacinta?

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

Absolutely. They're more scared about themselves than they are about saving a child's life or protecting a child's life. There's just this ridiculous, this is what political correctness has done. It's done this to our stupid bureaucracies, that toe the line on these ridiculous rules that actually have nothing to do with focusing on the human rights of our children. It is all about being perceived to be politically correct and being culturally safe and culturally aware and cultural this and cultural that, well stuff that. How about human rights of these children? That's what the focus needs to be on. What is best for the child, not for their culture — it isn't saving their lives right now. That is not what should be prioritised. What's happening is they're being sacrificed on the altar of maintaining culture now. That is what is happening. I'm just so, I don't know, you know I feel like a broken record. I feel I've been bashing my head against a brick wall for years now, and yet they still want to do it. Oh, now's not the time in this sullen voice. Come on, like who are you kidding, Minister?

MARK LEVY:

Well said, Jacinta. I just wanted to ask you one last question and I want to ask this respectfully because on Friday you pointed to some statistics that are shocking and that is that the Northern Territory continues to experience the highest domestic and family violence rates in the country. Approximately 100 women have been killed by intimate partners over the past 25 years. In 2024, seven of the nine homicide victims in the territory were linked to domestic and family violence. There's one thing that I'm struggling to understand, and you might be able to give me an appreciation of what it's like in these town camps. What we saw, the anger spill out onto the streets and the right outside Alice Springs Police Station. For the record, I'm not surprised. I'd probably react the same way if a member of my community had allegedly been murdered by this particular person that his name is all over the press. But at the same time I felt myself watching the vision Jacinta and I'm thinking to myself if there's an angry response to the way in which this poor little girl has lost her life are we getting that same angry response from those within those town camps when it comes to violence against women, sexual violence, alcohol abuse, is there an angry response to that or not?

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

No, no, no. You don't see that in the same way as what we saw, you know, I saw that and I thought why isn't that, why don't we see that when a woman is...

MARK LEVY:

Do you know what I mean though Senator, because like I'm watching the TV and I'm thinking to myself, you know, if I was a member of that community and your community, I would be ropeable. I would want to exact revenge. I would want to take out my anger on this particular person, but at the same time, if I'm from a town camp where children are suffering at the hands of those older people in those camps, there's alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, there is domestic violence, why would I not be saying and making the same noise and showing the same anger, is that fair or not?

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

No, no, I think that's fair. I know of circumstances where, you know, another niece of mine was repeatedly raped by her own father. She was brave enough to come forward in a series of articles in The Australian, but she's had to move to Queensland. And I sat in court when her aunt had been attacked by her father's brother. The reason why he did that to her was because she dared to actually take that to police, act as a witness in her case and support her case.  Yet, the brother who was also supported by their mother in this situation attacked my cousin instead.  There's reprisal for often victims and for women who protect and support victims. There's reprisals that take place. But there's not the same response as what we saw the other day there to actually protect the victims in these situations. Like, this particular example where there was a manhunt, and rightly so, you know, people wanted to kill this bloke, and I can understand why they wanted to do that. But like you said, if it wasn't a matter that had been plastered all over the media, and under these circumstances, you don't get that same sort of response. You don't have that same willingness to want to act in this way. Let's face it, at the same time, there were people just acting as opportunists during that time. That behaviour was disgusting to be smashing up shops and fuel stations and targeting police who'd literally just been working their guts out the days before trying to find our little girl, trying to do the right thing by the community, they should never have turned on them either. I don't care how bloody angry you are, you don't turn around and turn that behaviour into something that just makes the whole situation even uglier.

MARK LEVY:

Well said, Senator Price, I just want to make it clear to you, I have a regular catch-up once a month on this program with a remarkable organisation called KARI, which I'm sure you are familiar with, that are doing really positive things in the Indigenous community and talking about and worrying about the future, and they get no government assistance, financial assistance, none whatsoever. But I look at the billions and billions of dollars that get handed over to Indigenous organisations that are supposed to be making a difference in the community. I just want to pick up something Peta Credlin wrote in her piece yesterday. She said, we talk a lot about reconciliation for the wrongs of the past, but what about rectifying the wrong of the present? And that's why we need to listen to Indigenous leaders like yourself Jacinta and we need to start making a difference. We debated for months the need for an Indigenous voice to Parliament, which was all about dividing us. Why is the Prime Minister just putting up the white flag here and saying, oh, well, we tried to put forward a Voice, that was voted down? That doesn't mean these issues don't stop. So we'll continue to have these discussions Jacinta. Any time you want to jump on and have a chat to us, there's an open invitation. I'm so sorry for what you and your community have been through, but know that there's a lot of anger in wider Australia because this has got to stop and something needs to happen about it. I really thank you for your time.

SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE:

Thank you Mark.

 

[Ends]