Farrer MP David Farley, who clinched Sussan Ley's old seat from the coalition at a by-election, said his party had decided to separate a "true NOM", or net overseas migration figure, from certain other categories of migrants.
He said One Nation's policy of getting net overseas migration down to 130,000 from the budget forecast of 225,000 in the following four years, excluded people brought in under a Pacific scheme, aged-care nurses and other in-demand skilled workers.
That group would amount to an additional 100,000 arrivals, and an increase of 5000 people from the budget forecast, leaving it closer to targets set by Labor and the coalition.
"What we're doing is we're focusing on the NOM in its true form, and then we've got these programs that have been available now for over a decade that drive our economy," Mr Farley told ABC's Insiders on Sunday.
"The raw number is not too different, but the reality is, where do we need them?
"We don't need them in the great urban metroplex - we need them out to be productive, working in agriculture, engineering, mining."
Cabinet minister Chris Bowen said net overseas migration could not just be redefined.
"My overwhelming conclusion was he's pretty comfortable with what the government's doing," he told reporters.
"I'm not sure what campaign One Nation's going to run on migration if they're effectively backing in what the Albanese government is doing."
Opposition immigration spokesman Jonno Duniam said voters were owed a clear explanation of what the party's immigration policy actually is.
"These are not semantic distinctions. They have real consequences for housing, infrastructure, essential services, wages, jobs and the economy," he said.
"For a party that has spent years telling Australians it has all the answers on immigration, One Nation is having extraordinary difficulty answering the most basic question of all: how many migrants would actually come to Australia under its policy."
Opinion polls have shown that voters trust One Nation to manage migration better than the two major parties.
It comes as One Nation leader Pauline Hanson declared she would take her racial discrimination challenge with Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi to the High Court.
Senator Hanson lost a Federal Court appeal last month against a ruling which found her in breach of racial vilification laws after she told the Greens senator to "piss off back to Pakistan".
Asked if racial discrimination laws should be changed, Mr Farley said he wasn't convinced they should be.
He said his leader's comments "can be taken as an insult" but wasn't inciting racial discrimination.
"Hanson's got every right to challenge it," Mr Farley said.
"I think if we went through the pub test, I know which way it would go. It'd go in Pauline's favour."
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