A Liberal senator has been forced to clarify comments which appeared to compare asylum seekers to fleas.
David Fawcett made the remarks as senators discussed boat arrivals during an estimates hearing into the immigration department on Monday.
"I just do question the ethics of nitpicking when your particular group perhaps brought the fleas in the first place," he told senators at Parliament House.
Senator Fawcett later sought to offer a clarification, saying he was referring to Labor senators pursuing small, process-driven details from the department when boat arrivals spiked on their watch.
"The metaphor was that if they were nitpicking they were responsible for the cause of that irritation," he said.
"It is certainly not intended to apply to people who are refugees."
Mr Fawcett's comments came after government minister Michaelia Cash spoke of large numbers of "unauthorised arrivals" under the Rudd and Gillard governments.
Senator Fawcett's Liberal colleague Senator Ian Macdonald backed his comments, describing them as "nicely put".
Senator Macdonald later said any "fair minded person" would have understood what he meant.
"But clearly we are not all fair minded," he said.
Greens senator Nick McKim said the government and department had for a long time been deliberately trying to dehumanise asylum seekers and refugees.
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