Another opposition leader in Australia has hit out at Victorian Premier John Brumby for being "in denial" over the issue of attacks on Indians, acknowledging that race was a factor in some of the cases.
The remarks of Tony Abbott, the leader of opposition in the House of Representatives, came a week after Victorian Liberal leader Ted Baillieu charged the state's government of
failing to tackle the incidences of attacks.
Heaping praise on Baillieu for taking a stand on the violence against Indians, Abbott said there seemed to be a problem in the province with street crime and assaults, "and there does appear to be a racial motivation to some of these,"'The Age' reported.
Abbott made it clear that he did not mean that Victoria was the only place where such incidences happened or that Australia was a fundamentally racist society.
"We're not. But that doesn't mean that race isn't sometimes an element and where it is we've got to face up to it honestly and that's what Ted Baillieu did and John Brumby wouldn't," he said.
He slammed Victorian Premier Brumby and Police Commissioner Simon Overland for not tackling the violence.
"For months, we had the Premier and the Police Commissioner in denial over violence in our streets, in particular violence targeted against Australians of Indian background or Indians living in Australia," he said.
"Ted Baillieu, to his great credit, called it as it was,"Abbott said.
Baillieu has also said last week that the state government had failed to confront the assaults, many of whom were the result of "racist violence".
He had said the Victorian government's failure to tackle the attacks had "brought bad name to the state globally".
He also condemned the advice of state top cop Overland to Indians to "dress poor" in a bid to avoid attacks.
Tony Abbott, 52, is the current Leader of the Opposition in the Australian House of Representatives and federal leader of the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia.
There have been over 100 cases of attacks on Indians in Australia since last year, with most of them being reported from Victoria.