Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said it was never his intention to shut out people from certain nations despite previously singling out "bad people" from "bad countries" for stricter checks.
The coalition has been struggling to find a middle path between Labor and One Nation with its migration policy as it bleeds voter support to the minor party on its right.
Mr Taylor said the opposition's migration policy, which he unveiled on Tuesday, would put "Australian values" at the centre of the immigration system.
But his rhetoric has softened since he revealed the first leg of the migration plan in April.
At that time, he said all of the 1700 Gazans in Australia on visas presented high risks to the nation and must be "re-assessed entirely with far greater scrutiny".
He also raised concerns about migrants coming from Iran.
But pressed on Sunday about why he had not gone as far as One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and planned for a list of banned countries in the coalition's policy, Mr Taylor said that was never his intention.
"I've always said that we would discriminate not based on the country someone comes from, or their race, or their religion, but based on the person, and whether that person is a suitable person to be a resident or citizen of this country," he told ABC's Insiders program.
"That's what we should focus on and we should judge people on their character and conduct, not the colour of their skin."
Mr Taylor linked his policy to the Bondi massacre, carried out by a permanent resident who moved to Australia during the Howard premiership and his Australian citizen son.
He blamed Labor for lowering the standards of migrants brought into Australia and for disbanding the Department of Home Affairs' intelligence unit.
But he admitted it was impossible to know the impact of the unit's abolition and whether retaining it could have prevented an attack.
Security-focused think tank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has said disbanding the unit hindered the department's ability to convert intelligence into coherent policy advice.
But machinery of government changes bringing ASIO and the AFP back under the Home Affairs umbrella in 2025 had rebuilt the bridge between national security operations and strategic policymaking, the think tank said at the time.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Australia had its toughest-ever powers to prevent violent extremists entering the country.
"I've been using them to be able to scan and assess whether someone has a history of being a problem before we give them a visa, and we've been cancelling visas when people are here, and we've been stopping people from coming here in the first place," he told News24.
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