SENATOR Trish Crossin's decision not to take her inquiry into nuclear waste management to Tennant Creek has "disappointed" the local MLA.

Labor member for Barkly Gerry McCarthy said the excuse that the inquiry will not visit the region at the centre of the proposed facility is unfair to constituents.

Senator Crossin told the Northern Territory News this week that only four submissions were received from the town.

"I'm advised there were 129 submissions from Central Australia," Mr McCarthy told the Sunday Territorian.

But Mr McCarthy said Senator Crossin gave him quite a different reason why the inquiry would not visit the Barkly.

"One of the reasons I have been advised by Senator Crossin that the inquiry won't come to Tennant is the Liberal Senators required to make a quorum said no," he said.

Mr McCarthy encourages Territorians to lobby federal MPs to bring the inquiry to the region that is at the heart of the issue.

He said people in the Barkly region were coming together to speak out.

"At last year's rally, I was really impressed to see how this issue united indigenous land owners, non-indigenous, and the pastoralists and their families," he said.

"It is an emotional experience to to see how this issue of national significance has united people in the need to be heard."

He said there could be a backlash against federal Labor members. Many of the submissions have slammed the inquiry's rigid process which means formal written submissions were required.

One submission noted that for many of the traditional Aborigines in the Barkly, English was not their first language and the idea of a written submission was foreign and divisive.