Coalition frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has broken down in the Senate while delivering an emotional tribute to Kumanjayi Little Baby.

Coalition frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has broken down while giving an emotional tribute to her niece Kumanjayi Little Baby, who was allegedly murdered in Alice Springs last month.

Kumanjayi Little Baby’s death sent shockwaves throughout the country. Her body was found in a riverbed five days after she went missing from her home in Old Timers town camp on April 25.

Addressing the Senate on Tuesday, Senator Price called for an honest conversation about the “failures of child protection” for Indigenous children.

“I don’t want to be here right now, to have to stand in this chamber, to deliver a condolence speech for a little girl in my family,” she said.

“She was loved. She should still be here.”

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price broke down while deliverings an emotional statement about her niece’s death in Alice Springs. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman.
She said her “niece’s life was taken senselessly, selfishly and horrifically”.

“And the hardest truth is that for many in my hometown, none of this came as a surprise. But the truth is that people do not want to speak this out loud,” Senator Price said.

“For too long in this country, there has been silence around what is happening in too many town camps and remote communities – a silence driven by fear, a fear of causing offence, a fear of being labelled racist, fear of speaking honestly about dysfunction, violence, alcohol abuse, neglect and conditions.

Kumanjayi Little Baby was allegedly murdered. Picture: NT Police
“Vulnerable children are growing up in that silence and it is killing our babies. And when I say our babies, our people, I mean Australians.

“My niece was a little Australian girl, yet there is an ideology in this country that has deliberately encouraged people to treat children like her differently because of her racial heritage.

“It’s that same ideology that has created a hands-off culture within parts of a child protection system, an ideology that too often places cultural sensitivities and political correctness ahead of the safety of children, the same ideology that reveres organisations, bureaucracies and so-called leadership structures while vulnerable women and children continue to suffer behind closed doors.”

She said it was that ideology “that teaches people to stay silent in the face of wrongdoing because speaking honestly might offend somebody”.

Senator Price was comforted by colleague Sarah Henderson. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman.
Anthony Albanese described Kumanjayi Little Baby as “a bright young soul” who loved the world in the “uncomplicated way that five-year-olds do”, saying her loss was an “extraordinarily sad tragedy”.

Speaking during Question Time, the Prime Minister conceded governments of all persuasions had not done enough to deal with what he described as “generational challenges”.

“Every Australian child has the right to grow up safe and right with the security of a roof over their head, with the opportunity of great education to be empowered to make the most of their potential and their life,” he said.

Mr Albanese said Kumanjayi Little Baby deserved “all of that”.

He extended, on behalf of the government and the parliament, his “deepest condolences” to the girl’s family.

Jefferson Lewis, who had been staying in the camp around the time of Kumanjayi Little Baby’s disappearance, was arrested and charged with her murder.

He remains in custody on remand.