TV personality Ernie Dingo plans to fight a charge that he slapped a boy during an appearance at a rural WA primary school earlier this year.
Dingo did not appear in Carnarvon Magistrates Court today, but entered an endorsed plea of not guilty.
A one-day hearing has been set down for February 3 next year, and will feature seven witnesses - including teachers and students from Carnarvon Primary School, where the alleged assault against 11-year-old Terryk Cox took place.
Outside court Mr Dingo's family told Channel Ten he wouldn't be where he is today if he treated children that way.
"He's a big star. Why would he go and do something like that? He's got his reputation to think about," Maureen Dodd, his cousin, said.
Dingo's nephew Ben Roberts said it would tarnish his reputation even if he was found innocent and they would have preferred to have talked about it rather than go through "the white man's court".
However Terryk's mother Tracey Edney said her family had tried to approach Dingo for mediation into the matter but he refused point blank.
She said they were forced to resolve the matter through using the courts.
The Aboriginal actor, famed for his part in the Australian film Bran Nue Dae and as the host of Channel Seven's travel show The Great Outdoors, was in Western Australia to promote NAIDOC celebrations when the alleged attack occurred on Wednesday, July 28.
It was claimed that during a school assembly Dingo slapped an 11-year-old Aboriginal boy and one of the mothers reported the matter to police.
Dingo had played opposite the boy in a basketball game at the NAIDOC festival the night before the assembly.
There were no reports of any trouble between the pair then.
Although police originally downplayed the claim, local detectives charged the 54-year-old Queensland actor with aggravated common assault, the maximum penalty for which is three years jail.
Dingo will be in Perth in February, starring in Yirra Yaakin's new musical Waltzing the Wilarra for the Perth International Arts Festival.
