Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, says it is obvious alcohol is partly to blame for the unrest in Alice Springs, while pointing to larger issues around homelessness and disadvantage.

It comes as the town ended a 72-hour stay-at-home order on Thursday, issued on Monday after a series of violent incidents, including a brawl involving 80 people and an alleged assault on four off-duty police officers.

All parties involved have accepted lockdowns are not the long-term solution to issues in Alice Springs, as well as other communities more broadly, but this is where much of the agreement ends.

Speaking on ABC's Afternoon Briefing on Thursday, Senator McCarthy said there were a myriad of issues that needed to be resolved surrounding Alice Springs, which has now seen two curfews in four months.

"We are mindful…that alcohol plays such a major factor in a lot of the issues we experience here in the Northern Territory," she said.

"We have to get on top of the issue around alcohol. There is no two ways about that.

"That is something that we are trying to deal with at a federal level with the Northern Territory government and with organisations in Central Australia."

She then pushed Labor's housing policy to combat homelessness as an issue in Alice Springs, but accepted it clearly wasn't coming "quick enough".

"We know we have to keep investing in housing, we have to invest in jobs, and we have to make sure our kids are getting to school," Senator McCarthy said.

The Senator labelled violence in the town, which saw a daytime brawl in the town centre on Wednesday, "unacceptable," and noted the people involved would "feel the full force of the law".

@natindigtimes The Northern Territory Police Commissioner has enacted a second curfew in Mparntwe/Alice Springs this year. Spanning over three nights, this curfew will apply to everyone, not just children. #alicesprings #curfew #nt #aboriginal #indigenous #firstnations ♬ Conspiracy - Kieran Rogers

However, she defended the government's removal of the cashless debit card (CDC), which quarantined 80 per cent of a person's social service payments, so it could not be used for alcohol, gambling, or cash withdrawals.

"To put a blame on that [the removal of the CDC], I think is incorrect," Senator McCarthy said.

"I just want to be clear to your viewers about the cashless debit card. It is unlike the basics card, which we have in the Northern Territory, a 50-50 split… in terms of people's access. So, we do not have, to the extent that other jurisdictions had with CDC, the cashless debit card here in the Northern Territory."

There have been concerns by some stakeholders that the removal of the card has brought back more violence and alcohol in remote communities - at the behest of children's safety - but there is no noticeable uptick in hospital admissions for the areas reviewed in a recent report and many First Nations people have spoken of their relief at being allowed to make their own decisions with their money.

Liberal Senator Kerrynne Liddle told Sky News this week the government had made an "absolute mess of taking away the CDC in those trial parts where those communities wanted it".

Senator McCarthy disagreed, arguing: "It is not about the cashless debit card here in the Northern Territory…one of the things we were concerned about the cashless debit card more broadly across the country…was the involuntary nature of it".

"We know that people need to rise above their circumstances, but they should also be enabled to make choices as to how they do that in a very responsible way."

The government has been criticised by organisations on the ground in Alice Springs, who have argued their concerns have not been actioned fast enough.

"Since the first Mparntwe curfew in March 2024, Territory and Federal governments continue to refuse to meaningfully invest in First Nations communities and young people," Indigenous-led organisation Children's Ground said this week.

"Punitive policies that focus on policing, crisis-management and maintaining the status-quo - these policies, and this approach, do not work."

Catherine Liddle, the chief executive of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC), highlighted a "lack of transparency and accountability to the community," and argued there had been no visible progress since a meeting between the NT and federal governments, and community groups, in March.

"SNAICC said at the time this meeting should have been the first step in designing community-led solutions to issues that have been decades in the making. This does not seem to have happened," she said on Tuesday.

"Concerns were also raised at the meeting about how $250m, plus another $48.8m in federal funding commitments was hitting the ground."

Alice Springs mayor Matt Paterson told ABC News "there is a vision for a long-term plan, and I think that that is welcomed,"

"But what we need to do is speed that process up, because there will be no requirement for a long-term plan if these things continue in Alice Springs because it will drive good residents out of the community," Mr Paterson said.

All organisations have called for long-term thinking when it comes to remote communities and regional centres like Alice Springs, arguing curfews are a short-term fix without a viable long-term solution.