National's Clutha-Southland MP Hamish Walker is standing by his warning that southern quarantine hotels will be flooded with New Zealanders from India, Pakistan and Korea.
The Government is looking at Queenstown and Dunedin as potential locations for isolation hotels and Walker says that means up to 11,000 people from high risk countries could end up in the region.
The Minister in charge of the border controls Megan Woods is calling his comments disgraceful, scaremongering and racist and doesn't know how he came up with the 11,000 figure.
She declined to be interviewed.
Hamish Walker told RNZ political reporter Charlie Dreaver he's talking about risk and is not being racist.
