ABC presenter Laura Tingle has defended her comments that Australia has a racism problem, while noting she could have used more context and clarity in substantiating the statement at the time she made it.

The chief political correspondent of the ABC's flagship 7:30 program has been attacked in recent days after comments she made during her appearance at the Sydney Writers Festival.

In relation to opposition leader Peter Dutton's decision to call for a lowering of immigration numbers, Ms Tingle said: "We are a racist country, let's face it. We always have been and it's very depressing."

According to a transcript, Ms Tingle's comments came in response to a question by convenor and former ABC host Barrie Cassidy, where it was claimed Mr Dutton's plans to reduce immigration was "simplistic" and "foolish".

She said the Coalition's policy sent a "terrible chill running through me," and said she was afraid it would only give licence for people worried about housing shortages to argue "everything that's going wrong in this country is because of migrants".

Her comments have been criticised, with an editorial in The Australian accusing Ms Tingle of "loathing for the country the ABC is funded to serve".

"It is not depressing because it is not true," the editorial claimed.

"No society, including ours, is perfect but Australia is one of the world's most open, harmonious, multicultural societies, in which migrants have thrived".

Opposition Indigenous spokesperson Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was critical of the comments, as well as Ms Tingle personally, telling 2GB she was "really disappointed" in a "continued narrative that is being pushed within our country that does not provide any sense of pride for our children".

"I think she [Laura Tingle] needs to probably get some help for the way she feels, because that is not a reflection of the country, that is her opinion," Senator Price, who has argued there are no ongoing negative impacts from colonisation in Australia, said.

The ABC's news director, Justin Stevens, said Ms Tingle had been reminded to abide by ABC editorial standards at external events.

"Although the remarks were conversational, and not made in her work capacity, the ABC and its employees have unique obligations in the Australian media," Mr Stevens said.

"Laura has been reminded of their application at external events as well as in her work and I have counselled her over the remarks."

Multiple journalists, including from Crikey, The Saturday Paper and the Guardian, were critical of the ABC's response, with some arguing the public broadcaster had bowed down to negative commentary.

Laura Tingle has been "counselled" for what, exactly? Expressing her opinion that this is a racist country was not politically partisan nor was it a comment on any party's policies, so what precisely was the problem with it? ABC, seriously, get a grip.

— marquelawyers (@marquelawyers) May 29, 2024

On Wednesday Ms Tingle stood by her comments, while accepting they didn't contain rigorous context due to the nature of the "free-flowing" panel discussion.

She said her reference to Mr Dutton blaming everything going wrong in the country on migrants was her attempt to summarise and was not intended to imply he had said the comments verbatim.

"If I had been speaking on an ABC platform, or not in a five-way discussion, I would have provided all that context, as I do in my stories for the ABC," she said.

"I did indeed make the observation on Sunday that we are a racist country, in the context of a discussion about the political prospects ahead. I wasn't saying every Australian is a racist. But we clearly have an issue with racism."

Ms Tingle said there was ample evidence of racism in Australia, and without even going into the historic record, "racism remains a particular problem in our legal and policing systems".

"A coronial inquest underway in the Northern Territory has become mired in an expose of racism in the NT's elite policing unit," she said.

The coronial inquest into the shooting death of Warlpiri-Luritja man Kumanjayi Walker at the hands of police officer Zachary Rolfe, who was found not-guilty, has uncovered racist comments and awards given out depicting racist slogans in the NT Police.

On Wednesday, despite denying he had any previous knowledge of the racist awards, Police Commissioner Michael Murphy was forced to admit under oath he had been aware of them months earlier, "effectively gaslighting" people who had made numerous complaints about racism in the NT Police.

"Racism and racial profiling repeatedly show up as an issue of concern in our policing and justice systems," Ms Tingle said.

National Indigenous Times has reported on numerous incidents in NSW around police interactions with First Nations people.

A recent report highlighted the discrepancy in policing during the Covid-19 pandemic, which argued disadvantaged and First Nations children in New South Wales were targeted by police with fines of up to $5000, whilst last year, Senior Constable Ryan Joseph Barlow was found guilty of assaulting an Indigenous teenager in 2020 after being filmed holding the teen's arms behind his back and using a 'leg sweep' motion to slam him to the ground.

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Race discrimination commissioner Giri Sivaraman noted Ms Tingle's comments, like Ms Langton's last year, faced "far more scrutiny than the racism itself".

"This is partly why our media is so timid in addressing racism – because powerful voices try to shut down conversations that challenge the status quo," he said.