The Coalition's immigration spokesperson has sought to reframe its approach to migration policy, calling for a "measured and considered" debate "based on evidence" after incendiary comments by members of the party's right flank.

Outspoken conservative and former shadow minister Andrew Hastie last week quit the frontbench over migration, after asserting on social media that Australians were "starting to feel like strangers in our own home" .

During a speech at the Migration Institute of Australia on Friday, moderate Liberal senator Paul Scarr appeared to issue a thinly veiled swipe at his colleague via reference to an "inflammatory" speech by conservative British MP Enoch Powell in 1968.

Mr Powell's speech included a line that said British people had been "made strangers in their own c

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