{"id":802168,"date":"2026-07-15T16:28:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T16:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/802168\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T16:28:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T16:28:18","slug":"jacinta-nampijinpa-price-rebuked-for-sharing-false-claim-labor-importing-indian-migrants-liberal-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/802168\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacinta Nampijinpa Price rebuked for sharing false claim Labor \u2018importing\u2019 Indian migrants | Liberal party"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has been rebuked by Liberal colleagues after sharing a social media clip that falsely claimed Labor was \u201cimporting\u201d Indian migrants, resurrecting the controversy that ended with her sacking by former leader Sussan Ley.<\/p>\n

The backlash came as a new internal discussion paper<\/a> admitted multicultural communities had \u201cdeep-rooted\u201d concerns with the Liberals, urging the party to \u201cinstill message discipline\u201d to prevent political opponents weaponising its positions as \u201chostile or racist\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Northern Territory senator was last year sacked from Ley\u2019s frontbench<\/a> after suggesting the federal government\u2019s migration program favoured Indians to win Labor votes.<\/p>\n

Price later clarified the initial remarks \u2013 acknowledging Australia has a non-discriminatory migration program \u2013 but refused to apologise for the hurt caused to Indian Australians.<\/p>\n

The senator\u2019s refusal to publicly express support for Ley was the final straw for the then-leader.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Price, who was returned to the frontbench after Angus Taylor took over as leader, shared a social media clip from the rightwing podcaster Sam Bamford that harked back to the senator\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

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The host of the 2 Worlds Collide podcast filmed himself responding to last Sunday\u2019s episode of the ABC\u2019s Insiders program, in which panellists discussed Indian prime minister Narendra Modi\u2019s visit to Melbourne<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The panellists debated the potential electoral benefit for Anthony Albanese from engaging with Australia\u2019s Indian community given the size of the diaspora.<\/p>\n

In the clip, Bamford said: \u201cWe\u2019re just importing Indians for votes. That\u2019s pretty much what the ABC just said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not only a year ago that they came after Jacinta Price for pretty much saying the exact same thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bamford\u2019s claim about \u201cimporting\u201d Indian migrants is false because Australia has a non-discriminatory immigration program, meaning it does not select or reject visa applicants based on nationality, race, gender or religion.<\/p>\n

The Australian newspaper was first to report on Tuesday night that Price had re-posted Bamford\u2019s clip to her X account. The post was still on her page as of 4.30pm on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Guardian Australia contacted Price\u2019s office for comment.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Price told The Australian that the shadow minister for small business wanted to \u201chighlight the ABC\u2019s commentary around the prime minister\u2019s engagement with the Indian-Australian community during prime minister Modi\u2019s visit\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe repost was not an endorsement of every comment made by the podcast host,\u201d the spokesperson said, without specifying which part she might not have agreed with.<\/p>\n

The Liberal senator Andrew McLachlan said it was \u201cdegrading\u201d to the Indian community for anyone to suggest that its members voted the same way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose that push this view are seeking to dehumanise people. In my experience, as with any community, there are variety of life experiences and a diversity of views,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Liberal party<\/a> has a proud heritage of supporting multiculturalism and its enrichment to our country. Every member of our party not only needs to mindful of our policy heritage but also seek to build upon it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Price\u2019s views did not \u201chave a home\u201d in the Liberal party, according to another senior Liberal, who said some colleagues had always felt uneasy about her joining from the Nationals.<\/p>\n

It is the second time that Price has attracted controversy for associating herself with Bamford, a prominent anti-immigration advocate who has 400,000 followers on Instagram.<\/p>\n

In May, she denied she agreed with the podcaster\u2019s suggestion that Australia should stop migrants from India, China, Africa and the Middle East \u201cflooding the country\u201d, after footage showed her nodding her head during an interview between the pair.<\/p>\n

Multicultural communities \u2013 in particular Chinese Australians \u2013 have abandoned the Liberal party at the past two elections, damaging them in seats in Sydney and Melbourne especially.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has been rebuked by Liberal colleagues after sharing a social media clip that falsely claimed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-802168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}