Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday called on a right-wing opposition lawmaker to apologise for comments suggesting that an unsustainable number of Indians were migrating to Australia.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia. (REUTERS File)
The remarks were made by Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, a senator from the centre-right Liberal Party, who spoke about one of Australia’s largest minority groups following nationwide anti-immigrant protests that partly blamed Indians for rising cost-of-living pressures.
In a radio interview last week, Price said that a large influx of Indian migrants had been allowed into the country to vote for Albanese’s centre-left Labor Party.
“There is a concern with the Indian community, and only because there have been large numbers. And we can see that reflected in the way that the community votes for Labor at the same time,” Price said.
Her comments sparked anger among the Australian-Indian community, with calls for an apology coming from both the public and members of her own party.
“People in the Indian community are hurting,” Albanese said during an interview with state broadcaster ABC on Tuesday.
“The comments are not true that the senator made and, of course, she should apologise for the hurt that has been caused, and her own colleagues are saying that,” he added.
According to government statistics, 845,800 Indian-born people were living in Australia in 2023, more than doubling over the previous decade. Hundreds of thousands more born in Australia claim some form of Indian ancestry.
In response to rising tensions, the New South Wales state government on Tuesday convened a meeting of community groups to address increasing anti-Australian-Indian sentiment.
“Today we stand together with the Australian-Indian community to say unambiguously that the sort of racist rhetoric and divisive false claims we have seen over the last couple of weeks have no place in our state or country,” NSW Premier Chris Minns said.
Last week, India’s foreign ministry said it was engaging with Canberra over the rise in anti-Indian sentiment following the protests.
(With Reuters inputs)