Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith admitted on Tuesday that some of the attacks on Indians in his country were indeed racist in nature and pressed the need to build strong ties with New Delhi.

“If any of these attacks have been racist in nature — and it seems clear some of them have — they will be punished with the full force of the law. Such attacks affront our values and are anathema to our view of modern Australia,” Smith said. But he added that while Australia was one of the world’s most tolerant countries and one of the safest, “we cannot promise to stop all urban crime. No government can credibly do that”.

Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Victoria’s Opposition leader Ted Baillieu also joined Smith in conceding to and expressing concern over racist-based violence against sections of the Indian community, with Smith offering his government’s ‘condolences’ to the families of Indian nationals attacked in Australia. Smith told parliament on Tuesday that the attacks had “considerably damaged” Australia’s reputation and repairing the subsequent damage to the country’s image was an “essential priority”.

In Melbourne, Australia’s centre of most attacks against Indians, Victoria’s opposition leader Ted Baillieu and Premier John Brumby engaged in a war of words over the issue of attacks on Indian students. Addressing the Australian India Business Council on Monday night, Baillieu said that many attacks against Indians were the result of ‘racist violence’ that had been allowed to escalate while the government preferred to be ‘in denial’ and provide excuses attracting international condemnation.

Brumby hit back with his spokeswoman saying that Baillieu should know better than to use divisive and inflammatory comments. The Minister Assisting the Premier on Multicultural Affairs, James Merlino, slammed Baillieu saying that he has “cynically cultivated race politics and sought to manipulate the issue for his own political gain. Now he is fanning race issues again by calling Victorian mums and dads racist”.