Sussan Ley's analogy comparing the arrival of the First Fleet to Australia with Elon Musk's efforts to get to Mars was "strange" and disrespectful to Indigenous people, the prime minister says.
The deputy Liberal leader delivered an Australia Day message at a local church service on Sunday, where she said: "In what could be compared to Elon Musk's SpaceX's efforts to build a new colony on Mars, men in boats arrived on the edge of the known world to embark on that new experiment."
Ms Ley added that like astronauts arriving on Mars, the first British settlers would be confronted with "a different and strange world, full of danger, adventure and potential".