Liberal immigration spokesman Paul Scarr has taken a swipe at his former frontbench colleagues Andrew Hastie and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, welcoming debate about Australia’s immigration levels but warning it “must not seek to inflame emotion”.

In a major speech to the Migration Institute of Australia in Melbourne on Friday, Scarr defended Australia’s long-standing commitment to multiculturalism, demanded better long-term planning from government and argued that the country’s housing supply shortage should be a key factor in setting net overseas migration levels.

He also criticised Hastie’s decision to borrow a line for a social media post from controversial former UK Conservative MP Enoch Powell, who warned Britons in 1968 they risked becoming “strangers in their own country”.

Scarr, as

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