3 months ago
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Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says she doesn’t need to apologise for falsely claiming Labor is deliberately bringing Indian migrants to Australia to stack votes, and points to the ABC’s questioning to explain why she made the inflammatory remarks.
Price falsely claimed on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing program on Wednesday that the federal government was focused on bringing in migrants “from particular countries over others” and named the “Indian community”.
Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Within an hour of the national broadcast, the Coalition’s defence industry spokeswoman had walked back her comments, issuing a statement that said: “Australia maintains a longstanding and bipartisan non-discriminatory migration policy. Suggestions otherwise are a mistake.”
Her freelancing created a headache for Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, who was peppered with questions about Price’s remarks on Thursday. Ley said Price had “corrected her comments”.
But Price said: “I don’t believe I have anything to apologise about.”
“In the context of discussing the marches that took place on the weekend, it was the ABC interviewer who pushed the issue, who brought up the issue of anti-Indian migration,” she said.
“What I was doing was highlighting the fact that there is huge concern for Labor’s mass migration agenda – which is applying pressure to housing, to infrastructure, to services. Then I was further pursued on this line of talking.
“What I did was point out the fact that, yes, Indian migrants are the second-largest migrant group to this country, and soon to be the largest migrant group to this country. A recent Redbridge poll told us that 85 per cent of those who have Indian ancestry – and that’s my children included by the way – 85 per cent voted for Labor... So, these were the facts that I was pointing out.”
A transcript of Price’s ABC interview shows she raised her claim that the government was preferencing certain migrant groups after being asked whether she thought Australians marching about immigration were concerned about the number or type of migrants arriving here.
“It is definitely the core number. And of course there is focus from this government to be getting them from particular countries over others,” Price responded.
She was then asked twice to clarify whether that meant Labor was actively running a migration program to bring in people open to the government’s ideas. Price said: “absolutely”.
Host Patricia Karvelas then asked twice who, in particular, Price was referring to. The first time, Price said: “Those that are more Labor leaning”.
The second time she said: “As we have seen, you yourself mentioned, that there is a concern with the Indian community.”
“There’s been large numbers, and we can see that reflected in the way the community votes for Labor at the same time,” she said.
“So if they’re [Labor] going to see a reflection, that these individuals are going to vote for us more so than other parts of the community, then of course they are going to express the view that we will get those sort of individuals into our communities.”
Karvelas, earlier in the segment, had cited strong anti-Indian sentiment being propagated at the weekend’s marches.
Indian Australians have described experiencing racism and being afraid to travel into cities because last weekend’s rallies singled out high levels of immigration from India in their promotional material. One man described being pointed at while someone shouted, “deport, deport, deport”.
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi on Wednesday accused Price of feeding into a racist and white nationalist agenda by singling out the Indian community, while fellow Liberal senator Dave Sharma said he supported the Indian community and rejected the stereotyping of any migrant group.
Ley did not weigh into Price’s comments on Wednesday – other than to say Australia’s migration program was bipartisan and non-discriminatory, but on Thursday morning she was more forthright.
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“I’m fighting for every single Australian, no matter where you came from. And our Australian Indian community is amazing, you contribute as Australian Indians so much to our country,” she said.
“We know how hard you work, your family values, and the contribution you make across this country. And as opposition leader, I value that incredibly.”
Liberal frontbencher Julian Leeser, who is the chair of the Parliamentary Friends of India and has a large Indian community in his northern Sydney electorate of Berowra, did not directly criticise Price on Thursday. But he told ABC Radio National that Indian Australians were a “wonderful community” involved widely in civic endeavours in his electorate and had fought for their country.
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