Ice rink value quizzed in fiery hearing on outback town

An ice-skating rink in the outback, ‘fight sites’, domestic violence and a senator lobbying for a school that employs her mother have all been raised in a feisty parliamentary hearing.

Opposition spokeswoman for Indigenous Australians Jacinta Nampijinpa Price repeatedly raised Alice Springs school Yipirinya during the Senate estimates hearing on Friday, without mentioning that her mother and former Northern Territory MP Bess Price is a senior staff member there.

The senator also took aim at the National Indigenous Australians Agency, saying she did not understand how effective anti-violence initiatives in central Australia had been.

“In the lived experience, and I’m a local obviously, and there are many locals … their sense is that not much has changed on the ground, aside from certainly millions of dollars of funding being injected into organisations,” she said.

Officials from the agency provided data on how domestic violence reports were down in central Australia, but said there was a lot more to be done as the levels of violence are still far too high.

They said alcohol-related assaults were down by 28.5 per cent on the previous summer and alcohol-related domestic violence assaults had fallen by 27.9 per cent in that period, citing NT police.

Liberal senator Kerrynne Liddle questioned whether providing funds for a program that includes an ice-skating rink in Alice Springs was value for money.

An Indigenous agency was quizzed on programs and facilities in the outback town of Alice Springs. (Aaron Bunch/AAP PHOTOS)

The agency answered that they had provided $312,000 to Alice Springs Town Council for a range of programs in central Australia over summer including boxing, sport and music as well as the ice rink.

A senior agency executive said the summer program had included dedicated sessions for youth groups at the rink, and with service providers who identified at-risk young people.

Up to 70 activities were provided under several packages to address social disharmony in the region, the agency said, developed in partnership with stakeholders including the central Australian Aboriginal Leadership Group.

Senator Nampijinpa Price fired broadsides at Aboriginal community-controlled organisation Tangentyere Council, complaining they had not put their annual reports on their website.

The reports are publicly available on the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations website, agency staff replied.

“I’m trying to understand why responsibility is given to organisations such as Tangentyere, who don’t like to meet their reporting obligations on time and don’t seem to be providing in the way of outcomes for the community,” she said.

“So, with the leadership group is there anyone from places like Yipirinya school?”

Senator Nampijinpa Price also asked National Indigenous Australians Agency staff whether it was progressing a proposal from Yipirinya regarding boarding, which public servants said had been included in discussions with the agency.

Senator Liddle asked its staff, including agency head Jody Broun, whether they were aware of “fight sites” where videos of violence between Aboriginal women in Ceduna are being shared on social media.

“The most appalling one amongst those – and there are more out there -there were about 27 videos of women in the Ceduna region, punching up each other in streets, buses, everywhere you can imagine,” she said.

“It was pretty violent, it was horrific.”

After notifying the eSafety Commissioner, the site was taken down by Meta within hours, Senator Liddle said.