Australia’s next race discrimination commissioner says he is not in the business of criticising people but won’t hesitate to call out racism.

“That’s an important element of what we do,” Chin-Leong Tan told ABC Radio on Friday.

Mr Tan, a former lawyer who has held a number of diversity-focused leadership roles, will take up the post on Monday.

He is replacing Tim Soutphommasane, who finished up in August with a parting message that “race politics” is back in Australia.

The incoming commissioner, who migrated to Melbourne from Malaysia with his Chinese parents in the 1980s, is currently director of multicultural engagement at the Swinburne University of Technology.

He said the racial discrimination commission still has an important role to play in strengthening Australia’s multicultural society.

Mr Tan said he’s “not in the business of criticising people”, but is willing to highlight racism and racial issues.

“We’ll certainly deal with those and we’ll call them out as they are,” he said.

It’s also important to keep things “in perspective” and focus on other issues, Mr Tan said.

“That includes obviously ensuring that people are protected and given a fair, equal shake, as we would say, into opportunities in Australia.”

Asked about the controversial section 18C of the Race Discrimination Act, Mr Tan said he believes the issues surrounding it have largely been resolved through changes to a complaints mechanism.

The coalition failed in an attempt last year to re-word the section, so that it would ward against people trying to “harass and intimidate” others, instead of “offend”, “insult” and “humiliate”.

Mr Tan said if the public had concerns about the piece of law as it stands, he would be willing to be part of the debate.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said Mr Tan’s story is like that of so many Australians who were born overseas and made a new life in Australia.

“Because of the opportunities presented by and available in Australia, Mr Tan pursued his tertiary education in Australia and made Australia his home,” he said in a statement on Friday.

At the end of his five-year term as commissioner, Dr Soutphommasane declared “race politics” is back in Australia and accused politicians of using multicultural issues to advance their political agendas.

“I wouldn’t have expected that the biggest threats to racial harmony would come from within our parliaments and from sections of our media. Yet here we are,” he said in his final speech in August.

-AAP