Indigenous community leader Warren Mundine says having a debate about sustainable immigration levels isn’t racist, it’s necessary.

In a NewsCorp article today, Mr Mundine writes the major political parties are continuing to push that our current migration intake is “desirable and sustainable” while ordinary Aussies disagree.

Mr Mundine says we should be having a debate about our migration intake and we should be questioning what our cities can “realistically sustain”.

Nearly half of the nation’s population is based in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

A fact, Mr Mundine says, we can’t maintain for much longer.

“We’ve got to get away from calling people racist,” he tells Chris Smith.

“We’ve always had a non-discriminatory immigration policy since the 1960s.

“The issue is about numbers and the type of skills and professions they can bring to Australia to help build Australia.”

Click PLAY below for the full interview

The prominent Indigenous leader says we need to start building towns in northern and central Australia from the “bottom up” to get jobs where they’re needed.

“Every time (the) private sector tries to do things in regional or remote Australia, it’s always been attacked by the Greens, it’s always been attacked by people on the far-left and we’re losing jobs.

“If you look at the most jobs that have been created in Australia recently, over 50 per cent of them are in Sydney.

“We need to get those jobs out in regions.”