Religion, race have no role in immigration

Australia's race discrimination commissioner says it's "dangerous" for politicians to consider the idea of limiting immigration based on race or religion.

Pauline Hanson's One Nation took to last year's election a policy to ban immigrants with a Muslim background.

The case for such a ban has also gained attention after the Trump administration imposed travel bans on seven countries.

Tim Soutphommasane told a Senate hearing on Tuesday he had no problem with there being a responsible debate about the level of immigration.

"By all means there are legitimate questions to be asked about the level of immigration, but we can conduct that debate within the values of non-discrimination," he said.

"I believe it can be very dangerous to entertain the idea that we can use race or religion as a criterion for admitting people as immigrants to Australia."