Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr says British leader Margaret Thatcher made an “unabashedly racist” comment, recalling what she said to him about Asian immigration after she left office.
Carr said the “Iron Lady”, who died in London on Monday, had told him Australia could end up like Fiji “where the Indian migrants have taken over”.
While Labor stalwart Carr, who has a Malaysian-born wife, said he respected Thatcher for the boldness of her political leadership, “on 100 other things I would pick arguments with her”.
“I recall one conversation I had with her in her retirement where she said something that was unabashedly racist,” he told ABC television late ON Tuesday from China.
“She warned Australia - talking to me with Helena [his wife] standing not far away - against Asian immigration, saying that if we allowed too much of it we’d see the natives of the land, the European settlers, overtaken by migrants,” he added.
Carr said: “I couldn’t believe it.”