Australia has been described as "comfortably racist" by a reporter from the popular American satirical current affairs program The Daily Show.

John Oliver, a long-serving presenter with the series, described the country as a "a coastal paradise surrounding a rocky hell" after filming here last week, reports Mumbrella website.

In his Bugle podcast, he said: "Australia turns out to be a sensational place, albeit one of the most comfortably racist places I've ever been in. They've really settled into their intolerance like an old resentful slipper."

Oliver said he noticed that much vitriol was reserved for Australians of Lebanese origin.