Australian Human Rights Commission’s Indigenous Social Justice Commissioner, Katie Kiss, has praised the police for their “urgency and determination” in locating the missing five-year-old, Kumanjayi Little Baby.

Kiss remarked that she “cannot recall a time when the disappearance of an Aboriginal child has been met with such immediate attention from law enforcement.”

“Unfortunately, there are still Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people who are missing and have not received the same level of response,” she expressed in a statement.

“My deepest hope is that the brief life of Kumanjayi Little Baby marks a turning point—where the life of an Indigenous child in this country is valued, protected, and pursued with the same urgency as any other child.”

Alice Springs has been the backdrop for incidents involving Indigenous deaths in custody and has a longstanding history of alcohol restrictions and curfews.

In November 2019, 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker was tragically shot three times in his home by police officer Zachary Rolfe.

The coroner also found “all forms of racism” were present within the NT Police and made 18 recommendations for the force. 

At the time, NT Police Commissioner Martin Dole said the findings were confronting and committed to “stamping out racism in all its forms”.

The force introduced its Anti-Racism Strategy late last year.

Indigenous deaths in custody reached a record figure in the 2024-25 financial year, the highest since records began in 1979-80, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology.

There were 113 deaths in custody, with 33 of those Indigenous deaths. Two of those were in the Northern Territory.

Indigenous Australians make up just 3.8 per cent of the population but account for more than 33.3 per cent of the prison population. 

The federal government has also been criticised by some Indigenous organisations like the Aboriginal Medical Alliance Northern Territory for interventionist alcohol bans in Alice Springs being a band-aid solution.

The Territory government reintroduced a ban on takeaway alcohol today following community unrest outside the Alice Springs Hospital, where the man accused of the murder of Kumanjayi Little Baby was taken after being arrested by police last night.

Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe today said there were broader issues in the Northern Territory that cannot be ignored, like extreme poverty and a lack of basic services and support.

She urged the government to support and empower communities to create solutions, rather than engage in “interventionist approaches of the past”.

For 24/7 crisis support run by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, contact 13YARN (13 92 76).