Senator Sam Dastyari has been videoed while receiving racist abuse when trying to buy a beer at a pub.
A group of men confronted the Labor politician on Wednesday night, calling him a “terrorist” and a “little monkey” and telling him to return to his native Iran.
Speaking to Karl Stefanovic on the Today program on Thursday, Dastyari said of the incident:”It makes you feel small, it makes you feel horrible.”
“They’re the sickening face of white nationalism in this country,” he told Stefanovic.
“I worry more about the 15-year-old girl getting the school bus home today having to get this kind of abuse than a politician that’s lucky enough to have the some support structures around him.
“I’ve got a voice but a lot of people don’t.”
Dastyari says he is consulting with his family before deciding whether to lodge a formal complaint against his abusers.