{"id":206402,"date":"2025-09-07T01:24:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T01:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/206402\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T01:24:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T01:24:12","slug":"sussan-ley-declines-to-apologise-for-jacinta-nampijinpa-prices-comments-that-hurt-indian-australians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/206402\/","title":{"rendered":"Sussan Ley declines to apologise for Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s comments that ‘hurt’ Indian Australians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has declined to apologise for Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s comments claiming the government’s migration program was favouring Indian people in exchange for electoral benefit.<\/p>\n

In her first appearance on ABC Insiders as opposition leader, Ms Ley said Senator Nampijinpa Price’s comments were wrong, had been corrected and would not be repeated.<\/p>\n

But asked three times whether she would apologise on behalf of her shadow minister, Ms Ley repeatedly declined an offer to say sorry.<\/p>\n

“What I have offered to the Australian Indian community is my full support, my deep appreciation, my ongoing warmth for what they bring to this country and how we value them as migrants,” Ms Ley said instead.<\/p>\n

“We vote every three years, but we are Australians every single day of every year.<\/p>\n

“Others will make their own remarks, I know that as leader the most important message I can send is that appreciation of our Indian community heard directly from me as leader.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The opposition leader also refused to say whether she had counselled the senator, who jumped over to the Liberal Party from the Nationals in order to run as deputy leader under challenger Angus Taylor.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Sky News, Shadow Immigration Minister Paul Scarr said he had spoken with Senator Nampijinpa Price, adding there had been “great hurt” in the Indian Australian community.<\/p>\n

Senator Nampijinpa Price told ABC’s Afternoon Briefing on Wednesday that large numbers of migrants from India had come to Australia, suggesting Labor was favouring the group for electoral benefit.<\/p>\n

“So if [Labor] are going to see a reflection that, ‘OK, these individuals are going to vote for us more, more so than other parts of the community’, well then of course they’re going to express the view that we’ll get those sorts of individuals into our communities,” she said.<\/p>\n

Liberal senator admits Labor migration vote-stacking claims a ‘mistake’<\/a><\/p>\n

Senator Nampijinpa Price has conceded her remarks were a “mistake”<\/a>, but says she has nothing to apologise for and that it had been “pushed” as an issue in her interview.<\/p>\n

Her remarks were roundly criticised by her Liberal colleagues<\/a>, who said it had damaged relationships with the Indian community.<\/p>\n

Seeking to rebuild trust, Ms Ley will visit Indian community groups in Sydney today.<\/p>\n

She told Insiders Senator Nampijinpa Price would be undertaking her own engagement as well.<\/p>\n

Liberals maintain migration debate necessary<\/p>\n

Amid the fallout, the federal government finally released a long-overdue target for Australia’s permanent migration intake for the next year, reigniting a debate over the figure.<\/p>\n

The Coalition maintains that the level of migration to Australia is too high \u2014 Ms Ley said last week it was putting pressure on the Australian “way of life”.<\/p>\n

She clarified on Insiders that remark was not a reflection on migrants, but on public policy failures on infrastructure, jobs and services.<\/p>\n

However the party maintains that the current permanent intake figure of 180,000 is too high, and should instead be somewhere between that and 140,000 \u2014 the proposed level the Coalition took to the election.<\/p>\n

“We have to get that right, and it’s not just the permanent migration, it’s the net overseas migration as well, and it’s the people who are here for six months, 12 months as well,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We value our skilled migrants, we know how much we need them \u2026 the issue here is not about the migrants, it’s about the infrastructure.”<\/p>\n

Mr Scarr said there was no long-term planning attached to the government’s migration figure, which was allowing a “vacuum to develop” in the debate.<\/p>\n

“We need to be so careful in terms of these debates,” Mr Scarr told Sky News.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Paul Scarr says a sensitive debate over migration is needed. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

“And we need to get this debate to the stage where we are looking at the long term and we have a sustainable level of net overseas migration in the long term. It is so terribly important we move beyond the sort of rhetoric we have heard in the last week.<\/p>\n

“It has to be considered and measured, and once you go down the path of identifying or talking about one particular group, then that is a terrible, terrible mistake. It leads us down the wrong path and you see the impact across the community.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has declined to apologise for Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s comments claiming the government’s migration program…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":206403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,409,15360,113524,12489,50,17126],"class_list":{"0":"post-206402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-immigration","10":"tag-indian","11":"tag-jacinta-nampijinpa-price","12":"tag-migration","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-sussan-ley"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115160407966834669","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}