The death of Kumanjayi Little Baby is difficult to comprehend, and the grief her family must be experiencing is beyond imagining.
The little girl was five years old. As the Herald’s Hannah Murphy writes, she would hold her grandmother’s hand as they walked between houses in the Old Timers Camp, south of Alice Springs. She loved to wear dresses that made her look like a princess. She didn’t speak much, but she would tell her grandfather that she was hungry by pointing to her belly. She could say a few words; yellow, the name of her kitten, and mummy.
She was taken from Old Timers Camp south of Alice Springs on Anzac Day. She was found dead beside a riverbed five days later. The cause of death is yet to be determined.
She was allegedly led away by a 47-year-old man. He wasn’t welcome at his community of Yuendumu, due to alleged violence, so he went to Old Timers.
The grief and fury at her death spilled over into violence in Alice Springs on Thursday night, when the community learnt a man had been arrested and was injured.
The death of Kumanjayi Little Baby has reverberated around Australia, too. There are many unanswered questions about how she died, and many more about the systemic failures that left her so vulnerable.
As the National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Children and Young People, Sue-Anne Hunter, said: “The hope we held for Kumanjayi Little Baby’s safe discovery and return must now be held for the futures of our children. This must compel us to be better and do better for them. Every child has a right to safety and a bright future.”
The little girl’s death also highlights the particular and misunderstood funding and community safety problems facing the Outback and town camps. They are gathering places for the powerless and the outcast where the most vulnerable are easy prey and protections are minimal.
Australia has spent nearly 60 years trying to reduce such disparity between First Nations’ lives and the lives of non-Indigenous Australians.
The National Agreement on Closing the Gap, a formal Australian partnership between governments and Indigenous peak organisations, was supposed to reduce the discrimination and disparity between the lives of non-Indigenous Australians and First Nations people.
Proposed some two decades ago, Closing the Gap has rarely fully met targets addressing inequalities in health, education, employment and justice, despite constant rejigs.
We all know First Nations people suffer significant disparity in health, wealth, and life expectancy but Closing the Gap data show Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children in the NT experience Australia’s highest domestic and family violence rates. Some 100 women have been killed by partners over the past 25 years. In 2024, seven of the nine homicide victims in the Territory were linked to domestic and family violence.
The gaps seem to be widening. Over the years, the imperative of equality and good intentions has driven policy, but it has not worked. The Old Timers Camp tragedy is a reminder of the importance and urgency of this task. Kumanjayi Little Baby had a right to safety and a right to a bright future, too.
