Liberal Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has called out the "national disgrace" which contributed to the death of five-year-old Kumanjayi Little Baby in Alice Springs.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that this story includes the name and image of an Indigenous person who may have died.
Liberal Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has called out the "national disgrace" which contributed to the death of five-year-old Kumanjayi Little Baby.
Senator Price, who is a member of the five-year-old girl's extended family, said the alleged murder at the hands of recently released violent criminal Jefferson Lewis, exposed longstanding issues with Alice Springs' Town Camps.
She said they had become a revolving door of criminals, where alcohol restrictions were hardly enforced and where children's safety could not be guaranteed.
"There is constant movement. People coming and going. Individuals with long criminal histories moving in and out. Alcohol restrictions that exist on paper but are not enforced in practice. Overcrowding. Poor maintenance. Limited oversight," Senator Price said in The Australian.
NT Police confirmed on Thursday the body of Kumanjayi Little Baby, who was last seen on Saturday night at her home in Old Timers Camp on the outskirts of Alice Springs, was found about midday, local time.
Senator Price, who revealed on Wednesday that she had been assisting police with their search for her niece, said she "knew [the camp] well".
"It is a place where I have lost family. A niece was stabbed to death there. Another child in my extended family was killed in an accident at the front of that same camp. There have been too many lives lost in that place alone."
Senator Price called for "greater scrutiny" of how funding and resources were allocated in the community.
She demanded the federal government agree to an independent inquiry into "not only into the circumstances surrounding this case, but into the broader conditions that allow such vulnerability to persist".
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor accused Anthony Albanese of being in denial over the rise of violence in Indigenous communities, following the five-year-old's death.
Speaking on Sky News on Friday, Mr Taylor said it was a "tragic situation" that must lead to an "honest discussion".
He urged the federal government to “get out of denial about the situation we're seeing around Alice Springs and everywhere".
"It's the denial that has led us to this place where people aren't prepared to have honest conversations about the state of affairs in our town camps and what options there are to address it," he said.
"There is violence going on, there's sexual violence. We took to the last election a proposal for a royal commission, an independent inquiry into sexual abuse and violence in these communities and we still think that that is something that needs to be addressed."
Jefferson Lewis, the man alleged to have abducted and murdered the five-year-old girl, was arrested and taken to Alice Springs Hospital on Thursday night.
A riot erupted in Alice Springs following the news of his arrest and Lewis has since been evacuated to Darwin.
Lewis had earlier attended Charles Creek Camp where he was allegedly beaten by a group of vigilantes.
NT Police Commissioner Martin Dole told Sky News that Lewis had been transferred to Darwin in the early hours of Friday morning.