Hitting out at Australia's former defence chief Peter Cosgrove, who said it was 'easy to conclude' that some attacks on Indians may have been racially motivated, Victorian premier John Brumby dubbed his speech as 'factually inaccurate' and wide of the mark.
However, Brumby, whose state has been under fire for reporting maximum assaults against Indians, declined to elaborate on how Cosgrove's statement was inaccurate.
Soon after General Cosgrove asked the nation to confront racism, the Premier pointed out Victoria's multicultural heritage and said, "Many of the so-called statements that form part of Peter's [speech] just factually are not correct. They're just plain wrong. From that I believe he has drawn completely the wrong conclusions," according to The Age.
In his speech on Wednesday, Cosgrove said the nature of attacks on Indian students made it easy to conclude that they were racially motivated. Simultaneously, Victorian police chief Simon Overland also told a media outlet on Wednesday that crime against Indians was an old issue which was realised by the police two years ago.
He said "The problem for us is that the criminal incidents are cowardly and sly and it is easy to conclude that they are racially targeted." He added that some of the attacks had a racist motive, but some of them did not.
"I think we sometimes too quickly rule out racism. I think in individual cases, sometimes we simply have to say we don't know, and I think that's some of the learning for us," Overland said.
Meanwhile, reacting to the latest comments by the police chief, spokesperson of Federation of Indian Student Association Gautam Gupta said it was 'brilliant' that community leaders like General Cosgrove and Overland acknowledged the problem.
