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Sky News host Chris Kenny says there have been many “nutty, hateful and hypocritical reactions” to the stoush between the Diamonds netball team and billionaire Gina Rinehart.

“None more so than what we’ve seen from Indigenous boxer Anthony Mundine,” he said.

Mr Kenny said Mr Mundine hit out at comments made by Ms Rinehart’s father Lang Hancock in 1984 where he talked about “sterilising Aborigines who wouldn’t assimilate”.

“It was horrible stuff – from a bygone era, sure, but never excusable,” Mr Kenny said.

“Lang Hancock died in 1992, so we are talking about comments nearly four decades ago by a man who died three decades ago.”

Mr Kenny said Mr Mundine criticised Ms Rinehart for withdrawing the netball funding instead of distancing herself from her father’s comments.

“But in the case of Mundine, he wants to have someone publicly shamed over the words uttered by her father, who died decades ago,” he said.

“What then would Mundine say about his own words, just four years ago, when he went on an anti-gay rant on reality TV?

“They were uttered by Anthony Mundine, just four years ago and yet he smears Gina Rinehart over her late father’s comments 38 years ago.”