The theme at this year's Garma festival is Bukmak, which means everyone in Yolngu language — an expression of unity and a celebration of the diversity of modern Australia. And it was the tragic death of one five-year-old little girl, Kumanjayi Little Baby in April that has become a powerful symbol of what's possible when a community comes together.
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This story was produced with assistance from reporters from NITV News, SBS News and SBS Mandarin at the Garma Festival.
TRANSCRIPT
Warning: The following content contains the name and image of an Indigenous person who has passed.
Kumanjayi Little Baby's body was found on April 30, five days after she went missing from a residential town camp south of Alice Springs.
The frantic search that followed was the largest the Northern Territory has seen in more than two decades.
Speaking at Australia's largest Indigenous gathering, the Garma Festival, Northern Territory Police's Executive Director of Cultural Reform, Leanne Liddle, says the search was a momentous display of unity between police and the community.
"We were looking for a little lost girl in pink, we went looking for a little lost Aboriginal girl who was at a Town Camp at the end of the day. We all had a purpose and we all were involved and that was what everybody wanted to do was to find this little girl. Though it was tragic that we found her, it was closure for the family, particularly mum."
Ms Liddle says an ongoing memorial for Kumanjayi Little Baby, outside Little Sisters Town Camp, is helping the devastated community process its grief.
"It's great the whole community was so involved and it wasn't just a community, it was a nation at the end of the day. And I think we all need closure and but at the same time we need to remember that this was a pivotal time where everyone came together, police worked together with community, organisations that will probably never have met another any other circumstances came together."
This year's Garma, held on Gumatji Country in remote northeast Arnhem Land, has also become a place of healing for the officers who led the search.
Sergeant Chris Harden, from NT Police Search and Rescue, says the festival has been an emotional experience.
"Meeting people today, just thanking us for what we're doing, thanking us for searching, praying for us and praying for the families and our families while we're searching for Kumanjayi Little Baby... you know, I just didn't think people sort of really sort of you know showed that affectional care for us. And yeah it's it's been very, very emotional and just yeah blown away with that response."
Karl von Minden, the NT Police search and rescue mission coordinator for Kumanjayi Little Baby, says there was a strong sense of purpose that developed over the five-day search involving 500 people - and he is hoping that the trust between police officers and the community can continue to strengthen.
"Overwhelmed by the community support that we've had and the friendship that we sort of made with people as well throughout. It was a bit absolute tragedy that incident that we were we were all brought together to deal with. And hopefully there's outcomes moving forwards that will prevent this in the future."
The 26th annual Garma festival comes at a pivotal moment. A federal inquiry into racism, hate and violence against First Nations people is due to report in September.
There are also renewed calls for reform to how deaths in custody are investigated, following the death of Kumanjayi White — a 24-year-old Warlpiri man who died after being restrained by police at an Alice Springs supermarket in May 2025.
The festival also follows a controversial new Northern Territory law — Every Child Matters — passed in July.
The law abolishes the principle that requires Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children removed from their homes to be kept within their own culture - ensuring culture, family, community and Country are central to decisions affecting their welfare.
The Territory government calls it the most significant overhaul of child protection in a generation. But it's drawn opposition from Aboriginal community-controlled organisations, legal groups and human rights experts.
At Garma, independent MP for Mulka, Yingiya Mark Guyula, criticised the NT government over the new law.
He also said that since colonisation, there has never truly been a time when everyone was included in the idea of Bukmak.
"Last week we saw a new laws that mean more children will be moved and removed permanently from the from the kin, culture and country. These laws bring trauma and damage to our people."
But NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro — attending her first Garma — defended the laws, saying they put child safety first.
"This is why we're putting the safety of a child first because we believe in their right to be safe, we want them in safe homes with families caring for them and that's why we've been doing for hard work to make sure that everything else."
Land rights were also discussed.
Senior Yolngu Elder Djawa Yunupingu declared that land rights are in his words "coming home" to Traditional Owners in northeast Arnhem Land, with the launch of a new Aboriginal land council - the Dilak Land Council, formed with 13 Yolŋu clans of northeast Arnhem Land.
He says it's rooted in Yolŋu law, with ambitions including tourism ventures, local schools, and a Yolŋu university.
Northern Land Council chairperson Matthew Ryan says he wants to find a way to work together with the new council.
Meanwhile, three years on, the failure of the Voice referendum remained a key topic at Garma.
Noel Pearson — one of the architects of the Voice to Parliament proposal— says he still carries the weight of having raised hopes in Indigenous communities.
"The discrete Indigenous communities of Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander overwhelmingly wanted the Voice. The rest of the country did not."
In his first major speech since the referendum, Mr Pearson called for greater federal government intervention in remote NT communities.
But he insisted the failure of the Voice isn't a reason to abandon those hopes — placing his faith instead in a new generation of Indigenous leaders, especially young Aboriginal women, whom he described as competent, relentless, and determined to turn moral authority into political power.
Yothu Yindi Foundation CEO Denise Bowden echoed the sentiment, urging Australians to remember the past without being defined by the referendum's defeat.
And for Mia — one of a number of Darwin high school students attending Garma for the first time — the festival's theme, Bukmak, felt like exactly the right message.
"I think it's just really about how at the end of the day where all people and our greatest strength is when we can come together in celebration of the differences that we have, instead of making them divide us."
