Scott Morrison has invoked "quiet" Australians to play down anti-fracking protesters causing havoc during a trip to Alice Springs, where he announced a splurge to combat outback crime.
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As Mr Morrison met local councillors and community group leaders in the courtyard of Alice Springs Town Council on Sunday, protesters outside the property yelled "shame!" and told the Prime Minister they didn't want "his money".
Journalists and local leaders gathered for the announcement at times could not hear Mr Morrison, Country Liberals candidate for the Senate Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, and Country Liberals candidate for Lingiari, former Alice Springs mayor Damian Ryan.
When asked if the Coalition's announcements would be enough to win over people in Lingiari given the anger expressed outside the building, Mr Morrison said the government was investing heavily in the Northern Territory's industrial future.
"And there are some loud voices out there today. But there are many, many quiet voices all around this country which want to ensure that we have a strong economy on the basis of balanced and sensible economic policy," he said.
Ms Price condemned the protests, saying the groups participating should respect Mr Morrison as an "elder" of the nation - drawing a wry smile from the Prime Minister.
"The majority of them come from interstate and they have no right to carry on like this," she said.
"This is not traditional culture. This is not how we behave with this level of disrespect. And it needs to be understood that this isn't anger, this is out and out disrespect for an elder of our country, our prime minister, and I just want to make that point today.
"It's really important that we get that across particularly as such that our traditional owners had to go out there, go to there, and tell them to pull their heads in. It's not on."
Alice Springs sweltered through 55 days over 40 degrees in a 12-month period between 2018 and 2019, with experts warning the outback city could become Australia's first epicentre of climate refugees.
But Mr Morrison insisted the Coalition's could sufficiently curb emissions by investing in technologies which "would actually deal with climate change".
"There seems to be some view that you can deal with climate change in Australia, and that solves the problem," he said.
"It doesn't. It's a global problem. And so our approach is not to go around putting taxes on Australians."
Earlier, protesters attempted to enter the council grounds but were held back by campaign officials in a brief scuffle.
Mr Morrison announced $14 million to address increasing rates of crime in Alice Springs, including spending on CCTV, local diversionary activities, more support for community patrols, and a new health centre.
The outback seat of Lingiari is held by Labor but the Coalition hopes to take the electorate with the retirement of ALP stalwart Warren Snowdon.
With a 5.5 per cent margin, Labor candidate Marion Scrymgour is aiming to fight off Mr Ryan to hold onto the seat.
The Coalition only agreed to a net zero emissions target by 2050 in October, well behind Australia's European allies and the United States.
Labor's Senate leader Penny Wong was also in Alice Springs today with Labor health spokesman Mark Butler, Mr Snowdon, and Ms Scrymgour to announce Labor in government would train 500 additional First Nations health workers and invest in life-saving dialysis and rheumatic heart disease treatments to help close the gap in Indigenous health outcomes.