Kurin Minang human rights expert and law academic Dr Hannah McGlade has lodged a formal complaint with Australian Human Rights Commission over Pauline Hanson's claim Aboriginal people are "the most primitive race on Earth".

Dr McGlade said she lodged her complaint "because it's important that we tackle this racism through the law as well as in advocacy and protests".

"Like many if not most Aboriginal people yesterday, for me it was very upsetting to see and hear Hanson and One Nation's racism which belongs well and truly in past," she said on Tuesday.

"Racism has a serious impact on us as First Nations people and we have to fight it with all can."

In comments that resurfaced on Monday, Senator Hanson said of Aboriginal people on a podcast in September last year: "They're the most primitive race on Earth."

"We're actually all leaning towards this Aboriginal, you know, teaching about Aboriginal culture and language for what?'' she said.

"What the hell have they done in this country for, you know, supposedly 60,000 years? ... They never invented the wheel. There was nothing there.

"A few, you know, rock paintings. Sorry, they're the most primitive race on Earth, and we're supposed to be holding up and saying what they've achieved."

The comments sparked an outcry.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price described them as demonstrating "wilful ignorance" and dragging debate into "appalling territory". Senator Lidia Thorpe called the comments "dehumanising" and federal Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy said the comments were "totally outrageous" and "completely racist".

Dr McGlade told National Indigenous Times it was important to take a stand because Aboriginal people continue to face racism on a day to day basis.

"I was born in 1969 and grew up in the 1970s and '80s; an era of overt racism towards Aboriginal people. I experienced it as a child, and now as a carer of young children I see they are still experiencing racism today, at school and at sport events. It is so distressing," she said.

"A lot of Aboriginal people are hurt by these comments."

In a statement, Dr McGlade said the comments by Senator Hanson "are racist, insulting and offensive to Aboriginal people who have made enormous contributions to this country and whose history dates back 65,000 years and is known as the oldest living culture in the world".

"She made these comments in a podcast and in relation to the teaching of Aboriginal studies in schools, saying Aboriginal people had made no contributions and belittling an ancient culture which was sophisticated and highly evolved," she said.

"Also claiming that Aboriginal people are 'the most primitive race on Earth' ... (supports) notions of racial superiority which have underlined genocidal practices that resulted in mass dispossession of people from lands, massacres, frontier violence, and racial eugenics that supported the theft of children from their mothers arms."

Dr McGlade said the comments were "deeply offensive, racist, insulting, humiliating and intimidating to Aboriginal people" and had material consequences.

"Racism has serious consequences to Aboriginal people, and underline racist violence which can lead to Aboriginal people even dying on the streets from racist attacks. Aboriginal children have been known to be the innocent victims of racist violence," she said.

"About 30 years ago I heard the same comments from a Liberal Senator, Ross Lightfoot, and felt he needed to be held accountable for racial hate and vilification, lodging a complaint under section 18 C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975."

Dr McGlade noted that under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, to which Australia is a signatory, this country must prohibit race discrimination and race vilification.

"Lightfoot was eventually held to have breached the prohibition under s18C by the Federal Court of Australia. It's very concerning that we are seeing the same kind of racism today from Hanson as was the case 30 years ago," she said.

"This raises the question of what the Australian government is actually doing to combat racism towards Aboriginal people. Ignoring the Anti-racism framework of the Human Rights Commission and funding a University of Technology Sydney register 'Call it out' is not adequate and falls well short of its commitments required by UNCERD (UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination).

"We have a Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Senate Inquiry into racism to Aboriginal people but we need to take action as required by the Convention."