The new assistant minister for multicultural affairs, Zed Seselja, has rejected calls from television host Sonia Kruger to ban Muslim migration to Australia, because the government “does not discriminate on the basis of religion”.

He also rejected key planks of Pauline Hanson’s platform and committed to the government’s position not to change laws prohibiting public acts that offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate people on the basis of race.

Asked on Radio National about Sonia Kruger’s fear of immigration by Muslims and call for a ban on Muslim migration, Seselja said, “We can’t pretend people don’t feel that fear but the prescription is not one the government supports.”

“We don’t have discrimination on the basis of religion when it comes to our immigration program, and nor should we.”

But Seselja said Kruger should not be demonised because she had “expressed how she feels”.

Asked whether Muslim Australians should be afraid of calls like one letter to the Australian calling for them to be interned in camps, Seselja said “we don’t have anything to fear – we live in one of the safest nations on Earth” and border security kept Australians safe.

“These debates are difficult, it’s reasonable that people feel unease. When we have debates about what inspires terrorism, [what inspires people] to go, as we saw in Nice, to slaughter dozens and dozens of innocent people, then of course there’s going to be fear.”

Seselja said it was hard to know exactly why people voted for Hanson because they did so for a range of reasons, but Hanson had earned her spot in the Senate.

Asked about common ground between the Coalition and Hanson’s policies, Seselja said there was no appetite in the government for a royal commission into whether Islam is a political ideology.

Hanson’s proposal to put CCTV cameras in mosques and Islamic schools had “never been raised with me”, Seselja said.

He said the Coalition had no policy to ban the burqa or niqab, but he would not condemn people who said the Islamic dresses made them uncomfortable.

“Provided they are not doing harm to others in the community, people are free to express themselves and practise their religion.

“Freedom of speech and freedom of religion are challenging things, because we all have different views of the world.

“But if I want to be free to practise my religion, I have to afford people who have a different view of the world, a different faith, or no faith, to pursue what they believe as well.”

On Tuesday the deputy Labor leader, Tanya Plibersek, criticised Seselja’s appointment as assistant minister for multiculturalism, because of his previous position to amend section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

“The idea that someone who actually is prepared to go on the record supporting a ‘right to be a bigot’, as the attorney general put it, has been given responsibility for multicultural communities – I am not sure how that’s going to work out,” she said.

Seselja said that was his personal view when he was a backbencher, and his view was now the government’s.

“I’ve made it very clear – the government has a position not to change the Racial Discrimination Act.”

He said Australians should avoid trying to insult and offend others but “that’s a fundamentally different question to what you use the law to ban”.

Seselja said the Australian ethos of fairness “tends to come through”, trumping racism, and talked down racist elements in Australian society.

“Of course we’ve seen aspects of racism in our history, we had a White Australia policy of course ... [but] whilst you’ll see discrimination from time to time, most will give others a fair go.”

“There are always some dark sentiments in any society, and people on the fringes. I take a far more optimistic view of where we are as a nation.”

