Key facts
- Chris Minns said Stuart Bonds' remarks were "frankly outrageous and racist" and called replacement theory a US-imported conspiracy theory.
- Bonds heads One Nation's NSW upper house ticket and, on current polling, is likely to be elected in March's state election.
- Race discrimination commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman said such comments sow "division and hate" and risk fuelling exclusion and racism.
- Federal multicultural affairs minister Anne Aly said migrants are not replacing Australians, they are Australians.
- The report said at least one neo-Nazi, Joel Davis, and Family First national director Lyle Shelton attended the Sydney rally.
The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, and the Australian Human Rights Commission criticized comments by Stuart Bonds, who heads One Nation's upper house ticket in New South Wales, after he told an anti-immigration rally that Australians faced demographic replacement unless mass migration was curtailed.
Minns described the comments as "frankly outrageous and racist" and said the replacement theory Bonds espoused was "just a conspiracy theory that's been imported from the US here to Australia." Bonds will be first on the rightwing party's NSW upper house ticket and, on current polling, is likely to be elected in March's state election, the report said.
Bonds made the remarks at a rally in Sydney's central business district on Sunday, attended by several hundred people. The report said at least one neo-Nazi, Joel Davis, was among them, as were rightwing figures including Lyle Shelton, national director of the Family First party and previously head of the Australian Christian Lobby.
"Make no mistake, we are being demographically replaced inside our own nation," Bonds told attendees, after referring to abortion rates in Europe, the US and Australia. He warned that unless it was stopped it would be "impossible to reverse," and said a country was "a shared culture, a shared border, a shared flag, a shared language and a dominant religion."
The race discrimination commissioner, Giridharan Sivaraman, said on Monday that comments suggesting some Australians were superior to others sowed "division and hate." He said migrants were too frequently portrayed as the cause of Australia's challenges and that such a narrative "risks fuelling division, exclusion and racism."
Minns said voters should ask which portfolio Bonds would hold were One Nation to win the election, and whether the Coalition would distance itself from "those horrific perspectives." The report said comment was sought from the Coalition's multiculturalism spokesperson, Mark Coure, and from One Nation's NSW headquarters.
The federal minister for multicultural affairs, Anne Aly, said Australians with migrant backgrounds were not replacing Australians, but simply were Australians. "Questioning someone's right to belong because of their race or ancestry is not a debate about immigration," she said.