Bill Shorten has vowed to lift his game on diversity in Labor's advertising amid criticism from one crossbench senator the latest offering "could be an ad for the Ku Klux Klan".
Leaked to Nine News on Sunday but since withdrawn, the ad has the Labor leader saying "the people who want the jobs are here" and ends with an image of Mr Shorten standing next to a group overwhelmingly featuring white Australians.
Key senate crossbencher Derryn Hinch said it was just stupid and blinkered.
"It could be an ad for the Klu Klux Klan," he told ABC radio.
"Didn't Bill Shorten look at it the first time and say 'hang on where are the multicultural people here?'
The opposition leader reassured his colleagues during a caucus meeting late on Monday, saying it was poor oversight and won't happen again.
Following a backlash on social media, Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese blasted the campaign.
"I think the ad's a shocker and it should never have been produced and it should never have been shown," Mr Albanese said on Monday.
"It's not the sort of ad I want my party to be promoting."
Mr Albanese, a senior member of the party and former leadership contender, said he had not seen the ad before it aired.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion said Mr Shorten had done the right thing to pull the ad that portrays Australia as a country just made up of white Anglo-Saxons.
"That Mr Shorten appeared in the advertisement and is the shadow minister for indigenous affairs... makes it all the more disappointing," he said in a statement.
