Opposition leader defends Jacinta Price’s social media activity on false migrant claim
Updated . First published
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has defended Jacinta Nampijinpa Price for reposting a right-wing figure’s false accusations on migration, saying he did not think it was an endorsement.
Price, who was dumped from the shadow cabinet in September after claiming Labor was prioritising migration from India to skew votes, reposted a video on Tuesday that touched on the same topic.
Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price reposted the controversial video on her social media. The Sydney Morning Herald
The post by right-wing 2 Worlds Collide podcast host Sam Bamford criticised a recent ABC segment where a panel discussed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hosting the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Australia last week and how important the diaspora was to the government’s voter base.
Bamford said people had attacked Price, the Coalition NT senator, for saying the same thing last year.
Australia has a non-discriminatory migration policy and caps permanent migration at 185,000 places, with 70 per cent for skilled migrants and 30 per cent for family migration.
Migrants, who make up 32 per cent of the population, are unable to vote unless they are citizens.
Recently, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found India overtook England as the nation’s largest source of migrants for the first time with 971,020 people – 70 more arrivals than the UK.
Taylor, who told reporters on Wednesday he would take a look at the repost, on Thursday said “a retweet is not an endorsement”.
“A retweet is pointing to a post that is made by someone else with obvious questions,” he told Today.
On Wednesday, the opposition leader defended his view on multiculturalism when pressed by reporters and said he supported skilled migration.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor was asked about the post at a press conference on Wednesday. 9News
Nine has contacted Price for further comment.
Multicultural Affairs Minister Anne Aly criticised Price for “divisive attention seeking” and called on Taylor to be clear about his stance on a multicultural Australia.
“Does he acknowledge the contribution made by migrants, running small businesses, working in our health, education and aged care sectors?” she said.
“Will he ever take a stand or will he sit on the fence and allow his team to seed division?”
Price has found herself in hot water in the past about her views on migration.
In May, she appeared on Bamford’s podcast and seemed to agree when he said the government “can’t keep flooding us with hundreds of thousands of Indians, Chinese, Africans, Middle Easterns and Gazans for that matter for the refugee status”.
Price denied endorsing his views and said she instead agreed with his final remark in his near-700-word preamble.
In September, then-opposition leader Sussan Ley demanded Price’s resignation after she refused to apologise for telling the ABC the government was allowing more migration from India to skew votes to Labor and publicly support Ley.
Price was booted to the backbench but later promoted to the shadow cabinet after Taylor ousted Ley from the top job in February.
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