Yes, Dutton’s comments were insulting. But more inclusive language won’t change the brutal reality of the detention regime. Refugees don’t need an apology from the immigration minister and they don’t need verbal acknowledgements of their capabilities. They need release from the camps in which they’re languishing.

By now, most of us should be fully aware of the arrival of refugees on European shores, and by extension, Australia. The descriptors used for these movements of large masses of people across land and sea are often described in fluid terms: a surge, a flood, a wave, a flow; a rising tide that is about to break open the dams and threaten the biodiversity of our precious ecosystems. This language isn't just tremendously invalidating and dehumanising: when scores of migrants are either locked up in detention centres or dying at sea, it helps to gloss over the fact of their mere existence.

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.