{"id":212660,"date":"2025-09-09T11:12:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T11:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/212660\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T11:12:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T11:12:14","slug":"right-leaning-mps-rally-around-nampijinpa-price-as-she-resists-calls-to-apologise-to-indian-australians-australian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/212660\/","title":{"rendered":"Right-leaning MPs rally around Nampijinpa Price as she resists calls to apologise to Indian Australians | Australian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prominent conservatives are rallying around Jacinta Nampijinpa Price<\/a> as she faces mounting internal and external pressure to apologise for comments about Indian migrants.<\/p>\n

The Victorian Liberal senator Sarah Henderson, the Nationals senator Matt Canavan and Victorian state Liberal MP Moira Deeming have all issued public statements of support for Price, further exposing divisions inside the Coalition as the saga continues.<\/p>\n

The statements came as the Liberal leader, Sussan Ley<\/a>, stopped short of calling on Price to apologise despite a growing number of Coalition MPs and the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, urging the Northern Territory senator to do so.<\/p>\n

Senior Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie \u2013 Price\u2019s former party room colleague \u2013 joined the former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce and the Liberal MP Alex Hawke in encouraging Price to apologise to the Indian community for suggesting the federal government\u2019s migration program favoured them to help Labor win votes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Price had walked back the comments<\/a> \u2013 saying it was a mistake to suggest Australia had anything other than a non-discriminatory migration policy \u2013 but not apologised for them, causing frustration among colleagues who want to draw a line under an episode that has damaged the party\u2019s relationship with the Indian diaspora.<\/p>\n

Asked if she would request an apology from Price, Ley sidestepped the question.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that the senator [Price] is listening to the Indian community and hearing their words directly in many instances, and I think that\u2019s important, because where feelings are hurt, there needs to be a two-way dialogue, and there needs to be an understanding,\u201d Ley said.<\/p>\n

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Ley held her own roundtables with Indian diaspora and New South Wales colleagues, including the opposition leader, Mark Speakman, in Sydney, who said in an online post on Tuesday afternoon: \u201cI and the NSW Coalition are sorry for the deep hurt many Indian Australians feel after a federal senator\u2019s offensive comments last week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guardian Australia sought details from Price\u2019s office about any meetings with the Indian community.<\/p>\n

Amid the widespread condemnation of Price\u2019s remarks, Henderson \u2013 whom Ley dumped to the backbench after replacing Peter Dutton as leader \u2013 backed her conservative ally.<\/p>\n

Henderson said her colleague had never \u201creflected adversely\u201d on Indian Australians and condemned Labor MP Julian Hill for accusing Price of racism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Price] is a magnificent Australian, she\u2019s a warrior for common sense and for the most marginalised, including of course Indigenous Australians,\u201d Henderson told Canberra radio station 2CC.<\/p>\n

In social media posts that did not directly reference Price\u2019s comments, Canavan described her as a \u201cpolitical rockstar\u201d whose \u201cbest days are ahead\u201d.<\/p>\n

Deeming also threw her support behind Price.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe [Price] is one of the few with the proven mettle in the fight for what\u2019s right for all people against the Labor-Socialist machine and its predictable, automatic fear-mongering amongst the vulnerable \u2013 every time they need to cover their tracks,\u201d the firebrand state MP wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But not all of Price\u2019s supporters are behind her, including NSW conservative Warren Mundine.<\/p>\n

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He wouldn\u2019t be drawn on whether she should apologise, but criticised the public dispute with Hawke and said the issue needed to be handled \u201cin-house\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to get back to being a credible opposition that is keeping things in-house, having discussions internally \u2026 and that\u2019s where these comments should stay until such time as we have our policy clear, and have a clear message, because these things can go very badly if not dealt with properly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Internally, Price also faces growing frustration among Liberal colleagues who want to see her apologise and move on from the issue.<\/p>\n

One Liberal, who wished to remain anonymous, said \u201cit\u2019s almost like she\u2019s the senator for Advance\u201d, and accused Price of trying to advance her own agenda.<\/p>\n

A Liberal MP, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, told Guardian Australia the party has \u201cdegenerated into open warfare\u201d after Price publicly criticised Hawke\u2019s intervention in the saga.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe rely on this being resolved and the clock is bloody ticking. Every day this keeps getting spoken about, the worse we\u2019ll go,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need that authority being exerted from the leader very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Albanese also weighed in on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe comments are not true that the senator made and of course she should apologise for the hurt that has been caused and her own colleagues are saying that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2013 with Australian Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prominent conservatives are rallying around Jacinta Nampijinpa Price as she faces mounting internal and external pressure to apologise…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":212661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-212660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115174044182443479","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212660","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=212660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}