It was Tampa that began it all 10 years ago, and I can remember a discussion I had, brief though it was, with then Labor leader Kim Beazley. While I knew the ALP was divided on the issue, I knew many people in the Labor Party hated the Tampa policy. I also knew there were many people in the Liberal Party and many uncommitted who hated and despised those policies.

I put the view that if he fought for a decent policy, for a humane policy, he would pick up votes against the then government, a government that was fighting desperately for survival and prepared to play politics with the lives of the most vulnerable people on earth in an attempt to buy votes. My conversation with Beazley ended when he looked at me pityingly and said: ''Malcolm, you don't understand what it is all about. Howard has whipped so many rednecks out of the Labor Party, I am not going to let him whip any more.'' How could he say it more plainly?

Many who fled from Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union in the postwar years would have had to pay people for some part of their journey which ultimately led them to Australia. What has been forgotten in this debate is that desperate people will go to any lengths to get to a country that they believe to be safe and that they know will give them, and more particularly their children, a future.

Our debates could have concentrated on such issues, but no, the competition between our political parties has become about who can be toughest, who can be nastiest, who can do more to besmirch people who get on boats, who can do more to say such people do not deserve a haven.

I would like to think the Age poll would give Australian politicians who support current policies and attitudes some pause for thought. There is an underlying decency among Australians that our politicians do not recognise. On this issue they appeal to a meanness, to the worst of Australian natures.