Earlier this week, the Age published an opinion piece by former Howard government immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone. Vanstone has a regular column with Fairfax now and generally uses it to argue predictably about the failings of the Labor Party. On Monday, she decried not only the actions of asylum seekers – ‘a sad story does not entitle them to come to Australia’, she argues, except that, well, it kind of does – but those people who ‘use the media’ to help the cause.