Price’s claim last week that the federal government was allowing more migrants in from India to skew votes towards Labor have damaged Ley’s efforts to rebuild the Liberal Party’s reputation with migrant communities.

The senator, who walked back the statement but has repeatedly failed to apologise, held a press conference yesterday where she did not say whether she supported Ley’s leadership and instead said “those matters are for the party room”.

Within hours, she announced that she was stepping down to the backbench after Ley asked her to leave the shadow ministry.

The opposition leader said the demotion was warranted because her frontbenchers are required to have confidence in her leadership, and because Price had refused to apologise for her “deeply hurtful” comments about Indian Australians despite being “given the time and space” to do so.

Ley today apologised to the Indian community, eight days after Price first made her remarks.

“May I take this opportunity, as leader of the Liberal Party, to apologise to all Indian Australians and indeed others who were hurt and distressed by the comments that were made, comments that I said at the time should not have been made,” Ley said.

“May I reaffirm my strong support for all our migrant communities for the values that they bring to this country, for the contribution they make and for choosing to come to Australia.

“I know that our migrant communities are waiting for homes like all Australians and anxious for a government that delivers for them and recognises that the woeful approach to housing, to aged care, to support for small business, affects everyone.”

Ley said her leadership was “absolutely not” threatened by the blowout and walked around questions about the damage the situation has caused the Liberal Party.

Price was elevated to the shadow ministry after she defected from the Nationals to sit with the Liberal Party after the opposition’s historic loss at the federal election in May.

She planned to run on the ticket with former shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, in his bid to contest the party leadership, but failed to contest after he had lost to Ley.

She has promised to continue to speak up about national issues from the backbench.

“This has been a disappointing episode for the Liberal Party. I will learn from it. I’m sure others will too,” Price said yesterday.

“No individual is bigger than a party. And I’m sure events of the past week will ultimately make our party stronger.”

Ley has maintained that Price remains “warmly welcomed” in the Liberal Party.

A new shadow minister for the defence industry and defence personnel is expected to be announced in the near future. 

Last week during an interview with the ABC, Price accused the federal government of allowing more migrants in from “particular countries over others” to skew votes and singled out the Indian community.

She later walked back her statement and said: “Australia maintains a longstanding and bipartisan non-discriminatory migration policy. Suggestions otherwise are a mistake”.

Her remark came days after anti-immigration rallies, some of which targeted Indian Australians, were held across the country on August 31.

Price has continued to ignore calls from several of her colleagues, as well as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, to say sorry.

She failed to do so as recently as her press conference yesterday, where she acknowledged the remarks were “clumsy” but said she “would love to be able to move forward from this”.

Ley has previously tried to minimise damage by touring Little India in Sydney and meeting with members of the community over the weekend.