A Labor backbencher has questioned Anthony Albanese’s suggestion that some “good people” attended Sunday’s anti-immigration rallies amid wider internal unease about the comments.
The member for the Melbourne-based seat of Aston, Mary Doyle, sought to clarify the language Albanese used to characterise the crowds at the March for Australia rallies during a closed-door caucus meeting on Tuesday morning, four Labor MPs confirmed to Guardian Australia.
In an interview with the ABC on Monday, Albanese criticised the rallies for giving a platform to neo-Nazis who sought to exploit grievances about immigration to sow public division. The prime minister also said there was “no doubt” that “good people” would have been among the crowds at the nationwide events, which called for an end to “mass migration”.
“There’s always good people will turn up to demonstrate their views about particular issues. But what we have here is neo-Nazis being given a platform,” Albanese told ABC’s Afternoon Briefing.
“That’s what we saw on the weekend. And the tone, of course, of much of the rallies was – unfortunate is the best way that you could put it, but hateful in some of the extreme examples.”
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At the meeting of Labor MPs, Albanese reiterated in his opening remarks to his caucus that not all of the protesters were associated with neo-Nazis as he warned against tarring all attenders with the same brush.
Doyle later spoke up about the characterisation of the protesters, using words to the effect of “bad things did happen at the rally, where do we draw the line?”, according to one Labor MP’s recollection of the question.
One Labor source said several other MPs also felt uneasy about Albanese’s language but chose not to speak up.
Government ministers strongly condemned the rallies prior to Sunday, with the multicultural affairs minister, Anne Aly, declaring the “far-right extremism grounded in racism” had no place in modern Australia.
Doyle’s contribution was seen as significant by some MPs given recent Labor caucus meetings have included few – if any – questions from the backbench to ministers, let alone the prime minister.
Guardian Australia contacted Doyle’s office and the prime minister’s office for comment about the exchange.
Albanese received several other questions about neo-Nazis at Tuesday’s meeting, including one about the far-right extremists who gatecrashed Victorian premier Jacinta Allan’s press conference that morning.
Albanese was not aware of the incident, which happened around the time of the caucus meeting, but he called the reports “horrific”.
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The prime minister said he was shocked to see far-right activists at the weekend’s rallies against mass immigration “openly in uniform”, and said it needed to be called out. He said he was concerned about specific multicultural communities being “singled out”, including Jewish and Indian Australians, and said it was important for Labor MPs to be reaching out to their communities.
Albanese told colleagues he planned to meet with Muslim community leaders on Tuesday.
Another unnamed MP asked Albanese about the apparent recruiting that neo-Nazi groups were conducting.
“We have to make sure we give people space to move away and to not push them further down that rabbit hole,” Albanese told the meeting. He raised concerns about challenges with polarisation online.
Separately at Tuesday’s caucus meeting, the minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, branded as “reprehensible” the far-right attacks on Melbourne’s Camp Sovereignty.
She added: “I have never seen this kind of attack in my parliamentary career.”
She claimed those responsible did not care if they were seen.
