Paul Scarr, dumped as opposition immigration spokesman by Angus Taylor, has crossed the floor to vote with Labor to censure Pauline Hanson over her comments about Muslims.

The Senate passed the government motion 36 to 17, censuring Hanson “for her inflammatory and divisive comments seeking to vilify Muslim Australians”.

Scarr, a Liberal moderate who worked on the opposition’s immigration policy before he was dropped, was one of two Liberals to cross the floor – the other was Andrew McLachlan, also a moderate.

Hanson has been widely criticised for saying on Sky News “You say, ‘Well, there’s good Muslims out there.’ How can you tell me there are good Muslims?”

Scarr told The Conversation after the vote: “There are people creating division and there comes a time when you have got to make a stand”.

Scarr said he had a close relationship with his “wonderful” Muslim community in his home state of Queensland and with other Muslim communities around the country.

He said he had picked up community feeling about Hanson’s comments at the five Iftar dinners he had attended in the past week. (These are dinners held during Ramadan to break the daily fast.)

“I know the real world consequences of divisive language”, he said. Young girls wearing the hijab would be attacked.

“I also think of the great work being done by so many Muslim leaders and members in the community - supporting fellow Australians in their time of need, seeking to establish interfaith dialogue and looking to give back to the community.

"It is really for them that I had to cross the floor.”

The opposition wanted to amend the motion to “condemn” Hanson rather than censure her but was prevented from moving an amendment under rules for the motion. It then voted against.

The censure was passed with the support of Labor, the Greens, independent senators David Pocock, Tammy Tyrrell, Fatima Payman and Lidia Thorpe, plus the two dissident Liberals.

Moving the motion the government’s Senate leader Penny wong said: “The words of parliamentarians echo into classrooms, workplaces, communities. They help shape how others see each other and how they see themselves.

"This censure motion is about drawing a line and sending a message to the people of faith in this country, and sending a message to children in this country that your leaders believe that condemning an entire religion is not acceptable.”

Opposition’s Senate leader Michaelia Cash said, “I don’t think that Senator Hanson’s comments were appropriate. Why? Because I personally have Muslim friends. My mum’s best friend is a Muslim. So I have to say, I think that there are good Muslims in Australia.”

But, she said, “the censure is one of the Senate’s most serious institutional sanctions and it should therefore be rare and sober. Not used as a routine tactic to score political points.”

Hanson described the motion as an “absolute stunt” and said her remarks had been misreported without the full context of what she said.

“The people out there will actually judge One Nation and my comments. Let the people judge me. I’m not going to be judged by you at all.”  After speaking Hanson stormed out of the chamber without voting.