Confronting video has emerged of police failing to intervene in brutal fights in an outback Queensland town.

The footage, purportedly filmed in the troubled Far North Queensland community of Aurukun, shows several women trading punches in the street as half a dozen or more police watch on.

Aurukun elder Phyllis Yunkaporta, who sits on the Cape York Land Council board of directors and helped found the Aurukun Wik Womens' Group, told the ABC police should be taking action "right there and then".

"Put these street fighting events as public nuisances now," she said.