The drive towards consensus between liberals and conservatives on refugee and asylum policy has little to do with pragmatism and much more to do with a shared desire for control. For those who imagine themselves in positions of power, a kind of permanent role-playing game for ALP activists and hangers-on, the prerequisite of any effective policy is the maintenance of government control over the process.

The language itself is a blanket, or a white sheet thrown over those bodies. It suffocates any debate or talk of alternatives. What does it even mean to distinguish between economic refugees and the regular kind, when those who flee poverty are driven to attempt such a dangerous crossing? ‘No one would put their children in boats unless the sea is safer than land,’ as the phrase attributed to Somali-British writer Warshan Shire goes.