A federal Liberal backbencher from western Sydney is glad the asylum seeker debate in Australia has changed after the image of a drowned Syrian toddler prompted people to be more welcoming.

Craig Laundy told a Walk Together march in Sydney he is proud his three children are growing up surrounded by Australians of different backgrounds and ethnicities.

“The great hope and pride that I have for our next generation is they never look through the prism of race or religion,” Mr Laundy told the hundreds of people who gathered at Camperdown Park in support of refugees.

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As the MP for a seat, Reid, that is Australia’s biggest recipient of humanitarian refugees, Mr Laundy is buoyed by a recent poll that shows Australians’ acceptance of asylum seekers has increased in response to the plight of a toddler who drowned at sea amid the Syrian refugee crisis.

“It rallied Australia to come together and have a serious conversation about immigration in a way that has been missing from this space for – in my humble opinion – far too long,” he said.

Walk Together marches were held in cities and towns across Australia celebrating diversity and welcoming refugees to the country.

In Melbourne, several hundred people braved the rain to march through the city’s centre and, notably, past the Greek and Little Chinatown food districts.

“We didn’t always keep people in legal limbo for many years after fleeing war and fleeing death,” federal Greens MP Adam Bandt told the crowd at Federation Square.

Mr Bandt said Australia needs to remember the compassion of the past, including under Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser, when the nation extended open arms to refugees and “not a closed fist”.

Federal Labor MP Andrew Giles said there are almost 60 million displaced people in the world and Australia has to “face up to our responsibilities as a rich and free nation”.

“The politics of asylum (seekers) haven’t done much for Australia, haven’t done much for the sort of country I want to live in, over the past 14 years,” Mr Giles said.

One of the organisers behind Walk Together said the marches were a simple but meaningful gesture.

“People coming together simply to walk – that is a very powerful statement,” said Violet Roumeliotis, the head of not-for-profit organisation Settlement Services International.

– AAP