A US stand-up comedian and star of multi award-winning television US show Breaking Bad has been taken to task by an Indigenous rights campaigner after controversial comments he made on his podcast.

Bill Burr is known for his outrageous comedy routine and role as lawyer Saul Goodman’s henchman Patrick Kuby in Breaking Bad. The 46-year-old is currently doing a stand-up tour of Australia and arrived in Perth at the start of his tour on Australia Day.

To give American listeners some context on his podcast he referenced the Midnight Oil song Beds Are Burning. He quipped that rather than give the land back to the Indigenous people as the song argues, it’d be better to ‘just give them casinos like we did (in the US), and get on with your lives’.

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Bill Burr starred in hit TV show Breaking Bad as Saul Goodman's henchman Patrick Kuby

Mr Burr was referring here to various Native American tribes who took unprecedented action in the 1970s to initiate Native gaming enterprises, and many proved to be very lucrative.

The comedian was poking fun at the Midnight Oil song and Australia’s history on its national day, but Michael Mansell of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre wasn’t laughing.

Mr Mansell, who has said financial compensation should be included as part of the government’s apology to the stolen generations, reacted angrily to the comic’s comments.

‘This bloke is saying that if Indigenous people get their land back they won’t make any economic benefit out of it,’ Mr Mansell said.

‘It’s like if we did get the land back we’d just sit on it and do nothing. It is just plain racist and not funny at all.’

The Midnight Oil song Beds Are Burning was referenced by Mr Burr as he riffed about Australia on his podcast

Mr Burr does a popular weekly podcast and on Monday admitted that he didn’t know what Australia Day was or anything about Australia.

‘I know that they have a very similar history to the US in that, you know, they had some Englishmen come over here. And there was people already over here, so that was a problem,’ he said on his podcast

‘They dealt with it in a way that centuries later musicians with guilt would write songs about.’

The American stand-up comedian joked that Australia had the same kind of history as the US as 'they had some Englishmen come over here'

He then broke into singing lines of the song Beds Are Burning by Midnight Oil, like ‘out where the river broke’ and ‘the time has come’. Mr Burr then referred to the band’s lead singer Peter Garrett, who went on to be a Cabinet Minister for Labor under Kevin Rudd and then Julia Gillard.

‘Remember that guy? He said (in the song): ‘The time has come. To say fair’s fair. To pay the rent. To pay our share’,' Mr Burr explained.

‘Then at the end he’d go: ‘Let’s give it back!’ But give what back? The f***ing land? And displace nine million people?

‘It’s over. It’s a terrible thing that happened. Just give them casinos like we did (in the US), and get on with your lives.’

Mr Burr always maintains that anything he says should not be taken seriously

Burr’s comedy has always been confrontational and he admitted on his podcast that he should not be taken seriously.

‘I’m not judging you guys. We got the same history and worse in the US,’ he said.

However, Mr Mansell still believed that more respect should have been shown to Australia’s chequered past.

Michael Mansell of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre is not a fan of Mr Burr's humour however

‘It’s still pretty offensive. The hypocrisy of people like this who say that that Aborigines or any Indigenous people keep looking backwards are the same people who celebrate an event like Australia Day that happened 220 years ago, which celebrates the arrival of white people,’ Mr Mansell said.

‘It’s hypocritical of him. If atrocities are committed against a whole people and a whole country was taken and over 200 years later these people still feel the consequences of that; why should we forget?’