Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday that a right-wing opposition lawmaker should apologise for comments suggesting an unsustainable number of Indians were migrating to the country.
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, a senator in the centre-right Liberal Party, made the comments about one of Australia's largest minority groups following nationwide anti-immigrant protests that in part blamed Indians for cost-of-living pressures in the country.
Price used a radio interview last week to suggest that large numbers of Indians had been allowed to migrate to Australia to vote for Albanese's centre-left Labor Party.
Her comments have caused anger amongst the Australian-Indian community, leading to calls for an apology, including from within her own party.
India's foreign ministry said last week it was engaging with Canberra over the rise in anti-Indian sentiment following the protests.
NUMBERS DOUBLED
Government statistics show 845,800 Indian-born people were living in Australia in 2023, more than doubling over the previous decade. Hundreds of thousands more born in Australia claim some form of Indian ancestry.