SYDNEY - AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said his Chinese son-in-law has worried him with stories about racism, but he believes Australia is a tolerant country despite recent violence against Asians.
Mr Rudd, whose eldest child Jessica married Hong Kong-born banker Albert Tse in 2007, denied that Australia was fundamentally a racist nation. Mr Rudd, who was speaking at a televised 'question and answer' forum with young people in Canberra, said his experience of Australia over many years was that it was a very tolerant nation.
He said he was sickened to hear that one young Indian man in the audience had been pushed around and had racist comments directed at him by teenage drunks on the country's national day last month.
'That's a really awful story and makes me sick,' Mr Rudd said. 'It really makes me sick that anyone would treat you, as a guest in our country, like that. It's wrong.'
He said the government was working to improve the safety of Indian students after rising numbers of assaults and robberies against them, but warned Australians to keep 'a weather eye on any of this stuff ever taking hold'.
Australian officials have downplayed racism as a motive for the attacks on Indians, which have prompted media outrage in India. -- AFP
