Labor leader Bill Shorten has moved to head off a backlash from Chinese-Australian voters after the party's disastrous NSW election campaign was marred by anti-Asian comments.
Michael Daley resigned as NSW Labor leader earlier in the week after the video of him saying "Asians with PhDs" were taking jobs from "our kids" emerged in the lead up to the election, helped to sink his hopes of defeating the Berejiklian government.
The Australian reports Mr Shorten has rejected Mr Daley's comments in a group chat with 500 Chinese-Australian voters on social media service We Chat Live.
"I just want to make clear as the leader of the federal Labor Party I don't agree with what he said and the comments should not have been made," he said.
Mr Shorten welcomed the rise of China as a global power and said Labor would make it easier to bring parents to Australia on a new temporary sponsored visa.
"America will always be important to the security for Australia, but if I am prime minister I welcome the rise of China in the world,'' he said.
The federal opposition leader has also written to Prime Minister Scott Morrison urging him to tell coalition MPs to sign the Federal Parliamentarians' Code of Race Ethics.
He said independent senator Fraser Anning blaming the Christchurch mosque massacres on Muslim immigration and Pauline Hanson's views on Islam needed to be condemned.
"The shocking violence against innocent people of faith in Christchurch earlier this month should give us all cause to reflect on the kind of language we use in public debate," Mr Shorten wrote.
"We know that words matter. We know they can hurt, and we know they can lead to hate and violence."
