Australia - humane or not?

It might be an exaggeration to say that the case of a 9 year old asylum seeker is probing the conscience of a nation. It is probably a too-optimistic assumption to even think most people are paying attention... but it IS front page news, and people are asking the hard questions.

Last December a shipwreck on the coast of Christmas Island of a boat carrying Iranian asylum seekers killed still undetermined scores of people, among them parents of a boy known to us as 'Seena'.

Illegal arrivals by sea has served as the number one wedge issue for the conservative coalition, now serving in opposition after coming as close to winning an election as is possible without actually gaining government.

It's all smoke and mirrors of course, illegal immigration by plane vastly outnumbers so called "boat people", but like any other population, Australians can be swayed by symbolism and vague atavistic fears exploited by ruthless and - it has to be said - Right-leaning politicians.

Seena among others was flown to Sydney for the funeral of bodies recovered from the shipwreck, and the opposition immediately blithered about the expense, were promptly called out on their lack of compassion, and forced to retreat and, to some extent, recant.

Then the government came under fire for putting Seena back behind barbed wire.... Christmas Island is in the Indian Ocean and is Australia's offshore processing centre for illegal arrivals by sea. It's about as Santa Claus as Alcatraz, with tropical zone malaria to make the place feel homey.

Seena has since been released into the care of relatives residing in Australia - either too quickly or not quickly enough depending on at what stage people want to sledge the Department of Immigration.

But then the scene shifts back to December again when the Liberal Party (the Liberals are our conservatives here in Australia) had a little meeting wherein opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison is alleged to say something to the effect of "hey, let's scare the voters shitless with the spectre of Muslim hordes taking over the country and use it as a wedge issue against the Labor Party!".

That is not exactly what he said nor meant, in all probability... but suspicion is not eased by refusal to discuss the detail of the meeting.

The issue in this then, I think, is not what Morrison said, but the split within the Liberal Party about what he can be interpreted to have said, and - just quietly - how to approach the M word - multiculturalism.

I find the absence of this word in discussions is quite interesting, if one seeks context from Howard's culture wars. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott merely said that the Coalition ''will always have a non-discriminatory immigration policy''. He didn't use the M word either, and Labor knows better than to step that landmine by looking to do anything than get Morrison's scalp.

It's like watching an ideological cold war that neither side has the honesty to admit to nor the will to fight.

Meanwhile, the Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has called for an independent review of the Migration Act, aimed at stopping children being put in detention. Over a thousand are in detention. There is constant talk about ending it, but the wedge issue is too valuable to the coalition and too dangerous to Labor for anything to happen while government and opposition stare across a parliament split with diamond-cutting precision down the exact middle.

Long after Morrison sees his name come off the front page, he may realise that wedge issues are not, ultimately, things you can choose or not choose to have, after all.

Little wedges everywhere... within Labor caucus, within shadow cabinet... everyone trying to look tough and compassionate at the same time (never an easy trick), ambitious Liberals looking to walk over political corpses, leaders looking to define themselves... and a country wondering how the hell we have kids in what can only be called prisons.

Little wedges... like little boats, coming unbidden and testing what it is you really stand for.