On the wish list: Sonia Kruger. Credit:Channel Nine When we were married I took my husband's surname. The question, "Vanstone, were your family Dutch?" is a constant amusement to me. It delights me to point out that my family was predominately Irish (bog farming not lace curtain) and that Vanstone is apparently a derivative of the English Fonstones from Devon. My greatest pleasure is in asking, "Does it matter?" Or: "Who cares?" About which I feel a little guilty. Why? The answer is simple. We are above all else an immigration nation. It is the essence of being Australian. Unless you are a full-blood indigenous Australian you have migrant blood in your veins. When your granny came or mine is nothing more than timing. Our blood is loaded with the DNA of people who had the courage to leave family and friends and travel, in many cases around the globe, to make a better life for themselves and their kids. It's a wonderful gift. It's no surprise therefore that we show an interest in the source of this gift ... our fellow migrants. So whilst one might occasionally think, "I'm so over this" it's just self-centred laziness. We are all a part of the rich tapestry and should be proud of it.

But these days there's an industry built up around taking offence, being the victim. A less attractive example of this is the treatment meted out to those who for religious reasons think homosexuality is wrong. The trend now is to label them all homophobes. A good bout of name calling makes everyone feel better. Shouting about how bad someone else is can make the shouter appear to be the good guy. Hence the superiority and condescension in which those who paint themselves as protecting minorities luxuriate. They feel wonderful. Except it persecutes another minority; those who without being nasty, without publicly verbalising their views, without attacking homosexuals, simply go about living their own lives according to their own beliefs, namely, that homosexuality is wrong. Apparently that minority doesn't matter. I don't agree with them; but they matter as much as anyone else does. Universities, once the bastions of freedom of thought, the place above all others where one could express contentious views have become beacons of political correctness. Students now need to be warned if there is something in a lecture which they might find difficult. Guest lecturers cancel speeches because students disapproving of their views threaten disruptive demonstrations.

If we think the Catholic Church giving Galileo a rough time was medieval what do we think of students, rather than the university, deciding what they are prepared to hear. In a similar vein those who worry that what they see as their national identity being eroded by migration are labelled racists. Yet when we travel we seek out those very identities. We want the Italian experience in Italy, a nice cold beer and Schweiner schnitzel in Berlin and we don't go to Myanmar to attend a country and western concert. Yet if people in these countries protest at seeing the things we travel to enjoy, their innate cultural traditions being eroded by migration ... many call them rednecks and racists. Part of this tendency comes from lazy arguing, just bundling everyone into the same box. But we don't fit. In our lives and our thoughts we have many differences. Nuance is a good thing. Lazy debate kills it. We get no colour, vibrancy, light and shade, just the stark black or white version. It turns the great conversation of life ,the rich civilised debate we could have, into a simple battle. And we are poorer for that. But it is not just laziness. There's a vicious streak in these arguments. It says that if you are a minority, or purporting to speak on behalf of one, you can point your finger wherever you like, take offence, your subjective view of your hurt is all that matters.

With that entitlement in hand you can then paint anyone who disagrees as nasty. It's ridiculous. People say nasty things all the time. We've sunk to this: if you don't think the law should make it an offence to insult someone because of their ethnicity you might find someone asserting that you think hate speech is a good thing. This kind of rubbish has been tolerated for too long. It's a cheap and ugly tactic to immediately label someone who disagrees with you as holding the extreme opposite view even though they do not. It is Intellectually bankrupt schoolyard debating. People often get away with it because if you call them out you are labelled as someone who picks on minorities ... when all you want is an end to free kicks and a return to a fair go. Amanda Vanstone is a Fairfax Media columnist.