As the major political parties ramp up their "get tough" rhetoric on asylum seekers, a forum in Adelaide has attracted 300 people to its swiftly convened examination of the changes.
The menu was eclectic - lawyers, a demographer, a politician and a refugee - but they all expressed a strongly held concern that Australian politics had largely lost its moral compass.
As Karen Ashford reports, their stated aim was to bring a humanitarian dimension back to a debate which they fear has entered very dangerous territory.
"And it's been heartbreaking to say the least."
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says it was the Tampa incident in 2001 that prompted her to go into politics.
Twelve years later she says humanity has not been restored to Australia's approach to asylum seekers.
Instead, she says people seeking safety in Australia are subjected only to cruel treatment, and distrust that they're even genuinely seeking asylum.
She says Kevin Rudd's latest policy is shameful.
"That Australia will now not accept anyone who arrives by boat - even if they happen to be found to be genuine refugees, we will not now accept anybody in this country who arrived by boat."
A policy she says would be taken to even greater extremes by Opposition leader Tony Abbott's announcement that he would deploy the military to stop asylum seeker boats.
"But the key part of all this is that somehow we at war with vulnerable people fleeing actual war zones. And the whole underpinning argument is that this is a national emergency. It's not a national emergency, it's a humanitarian emergency."
21-year-old Hazara woman Marziya Mohammadi says when her taxi driver father was forced to flee for his life he promised all his family's worldly possessions to a people smuggler in order to secure passage to Australia.
It was a year before the family learned he had made it.
"And I said Dad, how is it? Please describe it to me, and he said it is a heaven in between the seas. That is what he said - and that is what he said from a detention centre."
Ms Mohammadi thinks her father's comment reflected his feeling of hope that his family would soon be safe.
But he then endured four years of detention, a temporary protection visa and an initial rejection of his family reunion application before he saw his family again.
She says those who question why people fleeing for their lives don't follow official processes have no idea of the challenges facing people who don't even have birth certificates, let alone the means to access bureaucracy .
"A lot of people ask me why didn't he come through legitimate channels you know, and I go hang on dude, what channels, you know? Because honestly, until like a few years of my residence in Australia I hadn't heard of United Nations, UNHCR, or you know anything like that. And a person, a Hazara who's been persecuted in Afghanistan, how do you expect them to go to the government and say hey dude I don't like your system, do you think I could sort of get a visa to you know, flee out of this country?"
And even after all that, Ms Mohammadi says the most challenging thing for her is seeing the current political debate on the television, and feeling stigmatised and hated.
"And I think this is the impact our political discussion has right now - it's dividing communities, it's actually instilling fear and hate and prejudice. It's instilling intolerance in between people, neighbours, communities, humans and just general people."
Human Rights lawyer Claire O'Connor says that's precisely politicians' aims.
"My concern is you're not being told the truth about the real reason for this. This is not about stopping people smuggling, it's not about stopping the boats - it won't stop the boats. The real reason is to get votes. And every person who comes here by boat is a person who's saying to the government in power "sorry, we don't want you in power". That's how they (MPs) see it and they take it that personally."
Claire O'Connor says if the prospect of possible death on a treacherous boat journey doesn't deter people from seeking asylum, then cruel government policies won't deter them either.
"Those policies won't deter people from making that trip, because death won't deter people from making that trip. Because people are escaping persecution and the prospect of dying. That's the reality."
Sarah Hanson-Young agrees, arguing Australia has created the problem of boat arrivals because its policies have closed all other options.
"Because if you are considered by somebody who is in need of protection or might apply for a protection visa, you are on what the government calls a high risk list, and you won't be given a visa to fly into the country. You won't be given a tourist visa, you won't be given a holiday visa, you won't be given a study visa. So unless you've already been assessed by the United Nations and brought here directly yourself, you cannot fly to Australia, you have to come by boat."
And now, the Greens Senator says, leaders are trying to get political mileage out of a crisis they have created.
"This is the ridiculousness of this particular debate - a whole policy as cruel as it is, actually forces people onto boats in the first place, only then to punish people when they arrive under the argument of deterrence."
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