Coalition Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has denied agreeing with a conservative podcaster that Australia should stop "hundreds of thousands of Indians, Chinese, Africans, Middle Easterns, and Gazans" from "flooding" the country, arguing she does not endorse "discrimination based on race, ethnicity or religion".
The Northern Territory Senator appeared on the 2 Worlds Collide podcast, hosted by Sam Bamford and released on Thursday. She asked questions about immigration, with the host admitting at one point he sounded "heaps racist" as he lamented people in Australia with Anglo-Celtic and European backgrounds losing their majority in the country.
Bamford told Senator Nampijinpa Price: "I'm not coming in here and saying I want to deport every single person that isn't the make-up of you and I, that built this nation.
"But our government isn't having the discussion of 'Australia is for Australians'. We can't keep flooding us with hundreds of thousands of Indians, Chinese, Africans, Middle Easterns [sic], and Gazans, for that matter, with the refugee status. It's like, we got to stop this, guys."
While the podcast video shows Senator Nampijinpa Price nodding at some points during Bamford's comments, she does not respond immediately, with the host acknowledging he had outlined "a lot of information" before asking for her thoughts.
The shadow spokesperson for small business replied: "Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree.
"I mean if people want to come to Australia, they have to adopt our values, full stop."
On social media, Multicultural Minister Anne Aly shared a video of Senator Nampijinpa Price's appearance, writing: "No Australian should...have to deal with the Liberal Party constantly punching down and questioning their existence and contribution to our nation."
However, in her own social media post on Thursday evening, Senator Nampijinpa Price denied endorsing Bamford's comments about immigrants from certain parts of the world "flooding" Australia.
"On the Two Worlds Collide podcast, I was asked a nearly 700-word, wide-ranging question covering multiple issues, which the interviewer himself concluded by saying: 'I mean that's a lot of information' — and I agreed that it was," she said.
"My response was to that remark. It was not intended as an endorsement of every point raised across a lengthy monologue."
The senator — who last year faced criticism over remarks about Indian migration — said her comments were "no way...endorsing discrimination based on race, ethnicity or religion".
"That is evident in the answer I provided and the broader context of the discussion," Senator Nampijinpa Price said.
"I was very specific in my remarks that people who come to Australia should adopt Australian values, contribute positively and support social cohesion. I also made clear in the interview that Australian identity should not be defined on ethnic grounds."
Later in the interview, Bamford asked whether Australians could be defined by ethnicity.
"There's just heaps of Indians, there's heaps of Africans, there's heaps of Middle Easterns and we never had that influx before," he said. "And then what is an Australian? I think it's an Anglo-Celtic, European or First Nation[s] person. That's what I think."
In response, Senator Nampijinpa Price said Australian values were grounded in "Judeo-Christian values" before rejecting Bamford's argument about ethnicity.
"I will say that I don't know that you can define it precisely ethnic, ethnically, like that, because I think we're far more mixed up than that," she said.
"I look at my own family in that my children have got, you know, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, Indian, Malay, Chinese, French, you know, they've got a grandmother on one side who's Mauritian to white Australian grandfathers and an Aboriginal grandmother.
"Fundamentally, it comes down to our values...Our culture as Australians has always been about: I'll stick by you. I'll be your mate if you are going to stick by me, and be my mate, and we do the right thing by one another."
