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Labor Senator Malarndirri McCarthy has pushed back against calls to pull JobKeeper payments from anyone who attends protests this weekend.

Mathias Cormann and Andrew Laming both told Sky News on Friday they supported supplementary payments being taken away from Australians who blatantly flouted social distancing restrictions at rallies this weekend.

Senator McCarthy told Sky News the suggestion was “unfortunate” and would “only cause more division in the community”.

“What we need our political leaders to do, in particular the Prime Minister, is pick up the phone and talk to First Nations people, talk to first nations media, engage with them and see what you can do to find a common path through what is obviously a very serious situation," she said.

“We don’t need to make it more divisive than it needs to be.”

The Northern Territory Senator also took issue with Prime Minister Scott Morrison after he suggested Australia did not have a history of slavery when discussing Captain James Cook’s legacy.

“I was fairly disappointed, I mean this is our leader of the country,” she said.

“Slavery is very real, you only have to look at the South Sea Islanders who were kidnapped and taken to Queensland and taken to the sugar fields there.

“So too, the people on the Cocos Keeling Islands who are in my constituency and Warren Snowdon’s of Lingiari who are descendent from people from Malays and the Dutch East Indies. Their stories are very much around slavery and forced removal.”

Image: News Corp Australia