An organisation paid tens of millions of dollars to help improve social issues in Alice Springs has been accused of failing to deliver services and for allowing a convicted domestic violence offender to sit on its board. While the town remains in the spotlight for social unrest the CEO of the Aboriginal controlled Tangentyere council has remained silent and declined to meet with local government and other stakeholders.
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00:00Servicing 16 town camps across Alice Springs with $30 million worth of government contracts,
00:08Tungindjira Council is one of Australia's largest Aboriginal organisations.
00:12But on the ground, stakeholders are frustrated by the silence from the top and what they
00:17allege are failures to deliver services adequately to residents across the community.
00:22This is the low expectations that are rolled out for Indigenous Australians.
00:28They are the most marginalised in this country, experience the highest rates of domestic and
00:32family violence and yet these are the standards that are maintained.
00:37Why we allow our children to play in absolutely diabolical conditions, live in the same places
00:45of absolute dysfunction.
00:49Tungindjira's CEO Walter Shaw has been at the helm since 2011, while his father Geoff
00:54Shaw is the board president and a former CEO.
00:58The Alice Springs Town Council frustrated it hasn't had a meeting with the CEO in over
01:03a decade.
01:04We've reached out on numerous occasions, we've written to the Attorney General to see if
01:08he can have any input into brokering a meeting.
01:11Unfortunately we haven't got there yet.
01:14Current and former employees of the organisation have told the ABC about what they believe
01:19are shortcomings in the organisation's leadership which they say are negatively impacting the
01:24community.
01:25The ABC can reveal that despite Tungindjira running several domestic violence prevention
01:29programs, one of its board members, Philip Miller, is a convicted domestic violence perpetrator.
01:35So personally I would not think that was acceptable, it would not be acceptable on a Northern Territory
01:39Government board.
01:41It's utter hypocrisy.
01:43It demonstrates to the community and to victims of DV that this organisation is not serious
01:50about reducing levels of domestic and family violence within our community.
01:55Mr Miller told the ABC he was elected to the board by his community and that he had put
02:00his issues of violence behind him.
02:01Tungindjira declined to comment.