In brief
- Pauline Hanson has faced backlash after remarks about Indigenous Australians in a past podcast interview.
- Labor and independent MPs havce condemned the comments as racist and divisive.
Pauline Hanson has been slammed as "completely racist" after she labelled Indigenous Australians "the most primitive race on earth".
The One Nation leader made the comments during an interview with the Jamie J podcast a year ago, where she criticised the study of Indigenous history in schools.
Hanson had "no respect whatsoever", Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy said.
"It's totally outrageous, completely racist, but it also divides our country in a way that we do not want to see happen right here in Australia," she told reporters at Parliament House on Monday.
"I do believe that, as all Australians, we have to stand up and stand out against such divisive commentary ... that is not the Australia I know.
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"It is not the Australia I want to see, and I call on all Australians to condemn such commentary."
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe urged Hanson to consider the "real harm" her commentary could cause.
"We know she won't change. She will continue to spread nasty, poorly informed and harmful ideas to rally her base and divide this country," she told the Australian Associated Press news agency.
Thorpe called on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to "step up" and tackle racism.
"Pauline Hanson is running circles around them (Labor) spreading damaging and divisive ideas while this government sits on its hands," she said.
Hanson had already come under fire in the past week after a video she posted labelled Liberal MP and former special forces soldier Andrew Hastie a "traitor" and criticised Albanese's mother for living in public housing for several decades.
Labor cabinet minister Tanya Plibersek said on News24 there seemed to be no limit to who Hanson was willing to "kick down", and questioned the basis of her comments on Indigenous culture.
"If you don't take the time to learn about a culture, you've got no right to call it primitive."
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