Anthony Albanese has made a plea to the people of Alice Springs after riots rocked the city overnight following the discovery of a missing five-year-old girl.
Anthony Albanese has called for the Alice Springs community to “come together” after Kumanjayi Little Baby’s body was found.
Riots broke out in the Northern Territory city overnight after police detained the five-year-old’s suspected killer.
The Prime Minister said on Friday the situation “breaks your heart” but praised the hundreds of people who “came together to search for this young girl before the tragic result”.
“And so this is community that are hurting, that need to come together,” Mr Albanese told reporters.
“There’s meetings there on the ground, as we speak right now, bringing together community leaders, the police, the health workers, the people at the hospital who had to deal with what occurred last night.
“And we want to see the community come together, but we certainly understand people’s anger and frustration and that was expressed.”
Kumanjayi Little Baby went missing late last Saturday.
She was last seen alive leaving the town camp in which she lived with suspect Jefferson Lewis – a non-blood member of her extended family with a history of violent crime.
He had been released from prison just days earlier.
Police confirmed on Thursday Kumanjayi Little Baby’s body was found some five kilometres from the town camp.
They also alleged Mr Lewis’ DNA was found on her underwear and vowed they would find him.
Mr Lewis was later found near Charles Creek town camp, where locals beat him badly before calling the police.
Further violence erupted outside the hospital he was receiving treatment at.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Malarndirri McCarthy, who is on the ground in Alice Springs, said “justice must take its course” and called for de-escalation.
“Well, our job today is to make sure that we de-escalate all of this,” she told the ABC, adding that Canberra had offered the Northern Territory federal support.
“I’ve said we’re here, let us know what you need.
“It’s tough … people are really deeply traumatised, hurting, angry because we’ve lost a beautiful little girl, and a lot of people want to blame people.
“Now we have to just let justice take its course.”
Meanwhile, the opposition has offered to work with Labor to improve the “state of affairs” in town camps, with Angus Taylor decrying it “a completely untenable, unsustainable situation”.
“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,” the Opposition Leader said, echoing a commentary piece in The Australian by Coalition frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, and aunt of Kumanjayi Little Baby.
“We’ll work with the government on any reasonable options to address this.
“But we’ve got to get out of denial about what this is doing to those communities.”
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About 400 people stormed the Alice Springs Hospital on Thursday night after the arrest of Jefferson Lewis, the suspected killer of Kumanjayi Little Baby.
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