In an address to the National Press Club on Wednesday, Liberal housing spokesman Andrew Bragg said his party would reduce net annual migration to 180,000.
He suggested the goal could be achieved by rolling back working holiday visas, among other measures.
The coalition has not announced a firm net migration target, instead saying the annual intake should be tied to housing completions.
The Nationals have rejected cuts to working holiday visas that would reduce workers in regional and rural areas.
Senator Bragg also used the speech to say the Liberals had contributed to Australia's economic malaise and the demise of the two-party system by failing to develop enough alternative policies and to take political risk for two decades.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said he had spoken with Senator Bragg since his speech, confirming the ideas raised in it were not official Liberal policy.
"Andrew expressed some of his personal views yesterday," he told reporters on Thursday.
"I've made clear to him that his job is to express ... the views of the coalition and the senior team of which he is a member when it comes to immigration policy."
The coalition's housing spokesman also came under fire for comments he made after his press club speech, suggesting poorer Australians should accept living in substandard homes to have access to a property.
"We've got to be clear there are trade-offs here," he told ABC Radio.
"It's more important to have a house than to not have a house.
"And so, given the affordability crisis we have in the housing system, we need to just build more houses."
Senator Bragg targeted "gold-plated" energy efficiency requirements, saying it was better for people to shiver in colder homes than not have a roof over their heads because of the chronic housing shortage.
Other coalition members, several of whom spoke to media on the condition of anonymity, refused to back the frontbencher's migration proposal.
Senator Bragg used the radio interview to suggest the compulsory superannuation system should be dismantled, describing it as "one of the biggest public policy failures since federation".
"(Under Labor) you're going to have super for under-18s and soon you'll have super for cats and dogs," he said.
Maiy Azize, spokeswoman for homelessness peak body Everybody's Home, said accessibility and energy efficiency were not luxuries.
"We have a housing crisis because people cannot afford a home," she said.
"Building more poor-quality homes does nothing to fix that crisis - it simply gives developers another way to profit from it."
Australian Council of Trade Unions assistant secretary Joseph Mitchell accused Senator Bragg of likening young workers to animals with his superannuation comments.
"(His) personal obsession with undermining our world-leading superannuation system must be brought to heel," he said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese seized upon the division within the Liberals following the speech.
"When (Senator Bragg) was asked, did he want to broaden the base and increase the rate of the GST? 'I wouldn't take anything off the table'," he said.
"This is a moderate."
Environment Minister Murray Watt said Senator Bragg bore comparisons to Greek hero Odysseus.
"I'll just put all my wacky personal policy ideas into a big Trojan horse," he said.
"I'll wheel it into the National Press Club and we'll see how it goes.
"Unlike the movie for Senator Bragg, our modern Liberal Party Odysseus was not successful. Cut down by the Trojans in the Liberal Party."
