Australian Politician Defends 'Petrol Sniffing' Australia Day Comment

An Australian federal MP isn't backing down after copping backlash over a controversial statement about Australia Day.

Andrew Laming was complaining about Cricket Australia's decision not to refer to Australia Day for the three Big Bash League matches on January 26.

He posted a link to a story about the move, captioning it with: "Deny it's Australia Day. That'll help petrol sniffing and school attendance in remote Australia."

The post has since been deleted and his personal and ministerial Facebook pages have disappeared from search.

He claimed the reason why the pages couldn't be found was because he wanted to go fishing. But then he added that the posts were blowing up and he didn't have time to respond to everyone.

"I'll always unpublish it if I can't monitor or respond on the page in real time," he said.

But the MP who represents the seat of Bowman in Queensland for the LNP, didn't stop there.

He also posted a status later saying: "January 26 is Australia Day or Invasion Day depending on who you are. Oh hang on, those wanting the latter want to liquid paper out the former. Intolerant much?"

Another said: "Is marching on January 26 how you 'virtue-signal' your way out of that culpability."

When asked on the weekend whether he was ready to make an apology for the statements, he refused.

"No apologies," he said. "No one could objectively call these comments racist - that's because they're not."

When asked why he referred to 'petrol sniffing' and school attendance, he simply noted that it was a problem in the community.

"I use them as two good examples of Indigenous health and education that we need to do better on," Mr Laming said. "There is good and bad in our nation's history. When we change the date, the bad is still there."

The Facebook posts have caused outcry from other politicians, with Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles shocked a Federal MP would make such comments.

"These racist comments are grubby and disgusting, and below the standards that we should expect of elected officials in our country," he said.

Featured Image Credit: 9News

Topics: Australia

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

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