Yipirinya School calls for federal government to support boarding house
The principal of a multilingual Aboriginal school says they feel ‘abandoned’ in their fight to build a boarding facility. Here’s why the proposal has hit a brick wall.
Northern Territory
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An Alice Springs school’s dream to build a safe place for its students and staff to stay has hit a brick wall as a dispute between the principal and a federal MP widens.
Yipirinya School principal Gavin Morris, who is also an Alice Springs councillor, has been calling on his federal MP, Marion Scrymgour, to garner commonwealth support for the Aboriginal school’s plan to build an 85-bed boarding house.
While the project has been on the cards for about a decade, Mr Morris said the need was becoming desperate after a string of youth crime incidents.
“The longer we wait the more likely it’s going to be that we’re going to have a fatality in community, whether it’s a stolen car, whether it’s a kid in harm’s way or a kid neglected, family violence,” he said.
“We’re not proposing to house every child here … but there’s 150 homeless children in Alice Springs.
“We’ve got a solution here on the ground, designed by community to respond to a community need.”
Mr Morris said while a “tremendous amount” of Labor ministers had visited the school in the past year, he believed they were not supporting the project because it was backed by the CLP’s Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and the National Party ahead of last year’s federal election.
“We’ve just kind of thrown our hands up in the air and accepted the fact that Marion’s neglected us and abandoned us – and we’re going to attempt to fund this ourselves,” Mr Morris said.
Lingiari MP Marion Scrymgour said while she understood the “urgency” in addressing the issues, she described Yipirinya School’s project as a political “knee jerk response”.
“We should not be pushed into a process focused on a small group of kids in one school – we need a properly planned approach that meets the needs of all young people in Alice Springs,” she said.
“The people of Alice Springs have had enough of wasted money and ineffective projects – we need to make sure our money is well spent and we get long term outcomes.
“We need serious thought and collaboration and I just don’t see widespread support for the Yipirinya proposal.”
Ms Scrymgour said she was “committed” to working with the Yipirinya School board – which has only Aboriginal parents and carers as members – through “evidence-based proposals”.
“But I will not be pushed into supporting the current proposal because of the principal and the CLP,” she said.
Yipirinya School, which has grown to more than 300 students, is the only school in Australia to teach in four Indigenous languages, as well as English.
Mr Morris said the project, which is proposed to provide short stays for 20 staff and 65 children, was expected to cost $5.8m.
The federal government announced a $250m package for Central Australia at the start of this year but budget details later revealed almost two-fifths of that figure would sit in a contingency reserve.
The $155.7m that has been allocated is planned to roll out over the next five years.
Territory Families Minister Kate Worden was contacted for comment but a NT government spokesman responded, saying a safe sleeping space already operated in Alice Springs.
“The Safe Space Accommodation and Support Program operated by Saltbush for young people commenced in Alice Springs in November 2022,” he said.
“This service is for children who are out on the street late at night unsupervised and are in an unsafe situation.”
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