Ali Curung[4] (Kaytetye: Alekarenge; formerly Warrabri) is an Indigenous Australian community in the Barkly Region of the Northern Territory.
[5]: 4 Accommodation for the white staff consisted of Riley Newsum buildings, Bellevue pre-cut houses and Nissen huts.
[5]: 11 The settlement also had an electricity generator,[5]: 5 airstrip,[5]: 8 garage,[5]: 14 and general and agricultural stores; vegetable garden and yards for pigs, goats and poultry;[5]: 9–10 a school,[5]: 6, 12 an infirmary,[5]: 6, 13 a recreation hut,[5]: 13–14 and a dining room where meals were provided.
[10] The landscape is characterised by red sand plains and low ridges,[12]: 33–40 with extensive areas of open spinifex grassland.
[8]: 7 [13]: 7 Warlpiri and Warumungu people tend to live in the west side of the community, and Alyawarra and Kaytetye to the east, orientating themselves in relation to their traditional country.
[16] A council had existed at Warrabri prior to 1977, with Aboriginal membership, largely from the west side groups in the community.
[22] In 2007, Ali Curung became a "prescribed community" under the Northern Territory National Emergency Response;[23][24]: 62 among other impacts, the Australian federal government compulsorily acquired a five-year lease over Ali Curung,[23] a Government Business Manager was installed,[19][24]: 71 [25] and residents receiving social security payments were placed on an income management system under which fifty per cent of their payments were "quarantined", and could only be spent on "priority needs".
[24]: 58 [25] During the period when it was managed by the Welfare Branch, some Aboriginal people living at Warrabri, as it was then, were employed outside the settlement in the pastoral and droving industries.
[27] Culture festivals have been held in Ali Curung at various times, including the Pulapa Wirri ("big dance") in 1975[28] and 1976.
It starred Keith Michell, J. G. Devlin and Candy Devine, with Teddy Plummer, Michael Williams and other Ali Curung locals.
[39][40][41] No alcohol has ever been available or permitted at Ali Curung;[7] the nearest liquor outlet is at Wycliffe Well roadhouse on the Stuart Highway.