Former AFL player Sam Newman has defended Pauline Hanson after the One Nation leader described Indigenous Australians as “the most primitive race on Earth” in an interview.

Hanson made the comments during an appearance on the Jamie J Podcast last year, which was co-hosted by former Liberal candidate and News24 presenter Jaimee Rodgers.

Referring to a discussion with a Western Australian teacher, Hanson argued that schools placed too much focus on Indigenous studies.

She then broadened her criticism of Indigenous Australians, claiming they had made little contribution to the country despite living on the continent for 60,000 years, before saying: “They’re the most primitive race on Earth.”

After the footage resurfaced this week, Hanson issued a qualified apology on Tuesday, saying: “If I offended people by using that (term, ‘primitive’), yes, I will apologise for that.”

However, Newman called Hanson’s comments “extremely fair” while speaking with Melbourne Underground Film Festival director Richard Wolstencroft on his You Cannot Be Serious podcast.

When Wolstencroft raised the controversy, Newman backed Hanson’s position, saying: “Extremely fair about the Indigenous people being primitive.”

The former AFL star added: “Well, how could you possibly not say that?”

The discussion then moved from Hanson’s comments to Newman’s point of view.

‘It’s not necessarily decrying or degrading or defiling Aboriginals, but like a lot of white people, they are basically a lazy and idle race,’ he said.

Newman anticipated criticism of that statement, saying it would be interpreted as him calling Aboriginal people lazy and idle.

‘So are plenty of white people and there’s plenty of success stories in the Aboriginal community and good on them,’ he added.

He also claimed there was ‘not one tangible thing’ to show for 60,000 years of Aboriginal culture and argued Indigenous Australians had not contributed to building the nation structurally.

That claim overlooks documented Indigenous engineering. For example, UNESCO’s World Heritage listing for the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape describes Gunditjmara channels, weirs and dams developed over at least 6,600 years to trap, store and harvest eels.

Newman also criticised Welcome to Country ceremonies, including the one held before the NFL game at the MCG.

‘It is just showboating,’ he said. ‘It is absolutely gratuitous nonsense.’

Later, he urged people to withhold applause at sporting events.

‘Don’t boo as I suggested and don’t necessarily turn your back on it. Just don’t applaud,’ he said.

Newman also explicitly declared his political support for the One Nation leader during the episode, saying: ‘Well, I’m a Hanson supporter.’

The defence of Hanson comes amid criticism of her original remarks from Labor, Liberal and crossbench figures.

In the resurfaced interview, Hanson questioned the value of teaching Aboriginal culture and language, claiming Indigenous Australians had ‘achieved nothing’.

On Tuesday, she said hurting people had not been her intention and acknowledged she was ‘not the most eloquent speaker’.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, whom Newman praised as a ‘fine person’ during his podcast, was among those who condemned Hanson’s remarks.

‘She did absolutely demonstrate wilful ignorance because there’s a hell of a lot more to Australia’s first people than simply what her remarks suggest,’ Price said.

‘I don’t care what excuses are being made. It was her tone and inflection throughout those remarks.’

Indigenous Affairs Minister Malarndirri McCarthy also rejected Hanson’s comments.

‘Those comments were completely baseless. They harm. They dehumanise First Nations people in Australia,’ she said.

– READ MORE: Bombshell as Pauline Hanson makes stunning apology to arch-rival Anthony Albanese

– READ MORE: Video emerges of Pauline Hanson labelling Aboriginal people ‘the most primitive race on earth’ 

The search for a partially deaf, non-verbal three-year-old boy who disappeared from a playground in Suffolk has entered a second day.

Officials said at 3am that there had been no confirmed sightings of Noah Woods since he ran ahead of his grandfather and disappeared down an alleyway at about 3pm on Tuesday.

Hundreds of local people joined police in the overnight search across the town of Brantham.

Noah is autistic and is not expected to respond if his name is called. He is white, with curly ginger hair, and was wearing a Bluey cartoon t-shirt, shorts and white trainers when he went missing.

The alleyway where he vanished leads towards a new-build housing estate, a local pond and a railway line.

His great-uncle, Tony Malcolm, who has been helping with the search, described Noah as “a lovely little kid”.

Residents have been asked to check gardens, sheds and outbuildings. A Coastguard helicopter was seen circling the village near the River Stour estuary.

Train passengers travelling between Manningtree and Ipswich were also told services would operate at reduced speeds while searches continued.

Just before midnight, volunteers who joined the hunt were told to go home for the night and rest, but many remained on the streets. 

Brantham Parish Council wrote on its Facebook page: ‘We have been completely overwhelmed by the support received from the Brantham community and from visitors from far and wide and our thanks go to the emergency services and all the volunteers who have joined the search so far.

‘The Village Hall will be open all night with toilet facilities and drinks if you need it. 

‘The emergency services will be continuing their search throughout the night.’

In a late–night update, they added:  ‘So far there have been no sightings of Noah.

‘The police are continuing their search through the night. They have asked us to let the public know that if you are asked to move by the police this will be to allow them to do specialist work so please be courteous.

‘For all those still searching, the police would like to remind volunteers to take care, travel in pairs, wear high–vis and to keep away from dangerous sites.

‘As a priority please check your own property; in gardens, sheds, under furniture etc.’

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Parish council clerk Sarah Keys estimated ‘up to 1,000’ locals had joined the search.

Volunteers from Suffolk Lowland Search and Rescue used a boat to search Decoy Pond, the local beauty spot Noah was seen running towards.

Police dog units joined the search overnight, and thermal imagine cameras were deployed.

One officer manning the cordon urged the public to allow officers to get on with the job themselves. 

He told the Harwich and Manningtree Standard: ‘We have been given information and we want to search this bit with our teams now that we have got the teams here.

‘You’ve got dog units looking for any sort of tracks, and then we’ve got thermal imaging going throughout the wooded area.

‘At this time of night with this light, it’s harder for members of the public – we want to make sure we can do that with all of our equipment we’ve got. 

‘The more people we have got in there [in the woodland] the harder it is going to be for us, especially with scents – if there is a scent or a track or anything like that, we don’t want that to be changed in any way. 

‘If there are people in there, the thermal imaging is going to pick up them as opposed to obviously all of our goal to find the little man.’

Suffolk Police said anyone with information about Noah’s whereabouts should contact them.  

The said: ‘Police are appealing for help to locate a missing three–year–old boy in Brantham.

‘Noah was last seen at approximately 3pm [on] Tuesday 15 September, when he became separated from a relative after visiting the playground in Merriam Close.

‘Noah is reported to have run off down the alleyway beside the playground towards the new build housing estate.

‘Noah is described as white, with curly ginger hair. He is wearing a white Bluey t–shirt, shorts and white trainers.’

A spokesman for HM Coastguard said: ‘We are assisting Suffolk Constabulary with an incident at Brantham by sending an HM Coastguard helicopter and Coastguard Rescue Teams from Felixstowe and Holbrook.’ 

Karl Stefanovic has shared new details about his departure from the Today show, saying he learned he had been axed in a phone call from his celebrity accountant.

The 52-year-old former television presenter was dismissed by Nine on June 26 after facing fierce criticism over an interview with far-Right activist Tommy Robinson on his podcast.

Speaking on Mark Beretta’s new podcast, Beretts’ Best, alongside former Sunrise host David ‘Kochie’ Koch, the media personality discussed the circumstances of his exit and his wife Jasmine’s reaction to the news.

‘I was at Heathrow Airport and I got a call from Anthony Bell [celebrity accountant] who said, “Mate, they’re pulling up stumps and you’re being terminated,”‘ he said.

‘For me, that’s very final. I’ve got a lot to think about. I remember sitting down and just going, “That’s just a lot to take in.”

‘Then I rang my wife who was really upset… I may be accused of being naive, but I don’t do things to deliberately upset people.’

He added: ‘The effects of my decision making have a multitude of effects on other people. Mainly the people closest to me, that’s the most difficult to navigate.’

Karl also addressed the farewell video he recorded for fans in a London park after being told he was leaving the Nine Network.

‘By that point, I was relieved. I was ready to go. I was ready to leave the show. It wasn’t in the way I wanted, but in the end, I was excited about the future,’ he said.

‘Even with that stuff, and whatever criticism happens, that’s me and that’s how I’m going to handle stuff. I’m never going to pretend to be anything else.’

Karl said he had mentally checked out of his role as Today host months before he was axed, having lost his ‘buzz’ for the job after covering the Bondi shootings.

Fifteen people were killed at Bondi Beach on December 14 during an antisemitic and Islamic State-inspired terrorist attack during the Chanukah by the Sea festival.

Sajid Akram, who was killed by police during the attack, and his son Naveed Akram allegedly shot dead 11 men, three women, and a ten-year-old girl. 

‘I was done… After I did Bondi, it was just too much for me,’ he said.

‘That would have been harrowing,’ Kochie, 70, said.

‘I was around very high emotions at Bondi. I’d done it before on many occasions—the Nice terror attack, the Brussels terror attack, the Bali bombings,’ Karl added. 

‘There was a series of things that I’d done and I’d always been able to compartmentalise. 

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‘For some reason, this being my backyard, I knew a lot of the people who lived there, and I was like, “I don’t want to be here doing any more reporting.” I used to love it.’ 

‘I used to love the hours and hours live on air when you’re doing those things. This is an awful thing to say, but journos do get a buzz out of it,’ he added.

‘I got no buzz no more, and that said a lot about where I was mentally about my future.’

Elsewhere in the interview, Karl went on to throw his support behind One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.  

‘She is a force in the country. There is no other way to describe it… She hasn’t changed in 20 years,’ Karl said.

‘That may work against her but I think it’s, at the moment, working for her because she’s been consistent. Don’t like it, don’t vote for it. The woman is doing the miles. 

‘I like her personally. I like plenty of people on both sides of politics personally.’ 

‘That woman means a lot to people at the moment because they feel that they’re not getting heard and she presses the flesh more than anyone else I’ve ever seen,’ he added.

‘It won’t surprise me if she takes it all away.’

It comes just days after Karl’s podcast business partner launched urgent Supreme Court action to stop the former TV star from forcing her out of the venture they built together.

Keshnee Ibrahim filed an application in the Supreme Court on Monday seeking to prevent Karl from removing her as a director of 123 Podcast Pty Ltd, the parent company of The Karl Stefanovic Show, at a meeting scheduled for Friday.

Keshnee is also asking the court to order Karl to buy out her 45 per cent stake in the business at a reasonable market price.

The legal action marks a dramatic escalation in the breakdown between the pair, who launched The Karl Stefanovic Show podcast earlier this year.

The pair are joint major shareholders in the company, which was registered in February, with each holding an equal 45 per cent.

Anthony Bell, Karl’s accountant and business adviser, holds the remaining 10 per cent. 

Sources say Keshnee had repeatedly proposed an independent valuation of the business ahead of a potential buyout, but negotiations stalled about a month ago.