It’s fairly easy to tell which side of the political divide Australians are on at the moment. Their positions on just two signature policies generally tell you all you need to know.

If someone is in favour of the carbon tax (or – at least – a price on carbon) and opposed to offshore detention for asylum seekers, they tend to be considered to be on the left. If they are opposed to the carbon tax but in favour of offshore detention, they tend to be on the right. If they favour both, they are usually members of the ALP.

According to a nationwide poll by UMR Research, 60% of Australians believe we should be tougher on asylum seekers than we already are. They apparently believe that we need to be absolutely draconian to deter desperate people from attempting to seek refuge in Australia. Their hardline position would appear to indicate that we need to be really cruel in order to make remaining in some of the worst places in the world the least-ghastly alternative. This punitive, deterrent-based approach is justified as morally necessary to protect asylum seekers from their own desperation and stop them drowning at sea.

Indeed, supporters of the current “stop the boats” policy argue it needs to hurt to work. Given that we now have more than 2,000 people held in limbo on Manus Island and Nauru, with no idea of how long they will be imprisoned or what might happen to them when they are released – except that they will never be allowed to settle in Australia – it certainly hurts, and the boats appear to have stopped. The murder of a detainee in the recent riots on Manus Island added an extra level of deterrence, perhaps.

Fewer Australians feel as passionately about the repeal of the carbon tax. The ABC’s Vote Compass found that only 35.9% of voters were strongly opposed to a price on carbon, 15% were neutral about the idea and 49.2% were in favour.

The interesting thing is that the principles behind putting a price on carbon – whether via an emissions trading scheme or a tax – and offshore detention are essentially the same. They are both deterrent-based policies, designed to hurt and therefore discourage behavior we want to stop.

They both operate by manipulating hopes and fears. People seeking asylum in Australia used to make their risky journey because they were filled with hope of a better life. Quite deliberately, we have replaced that hope with fear. The carbon tax was created to make industry and consumers fear increased costs in the hope that would reduce carbon emissions and help slow global warming.

The differences between the two policies are essentially in who they are designed to hurt and how much.

The carbon tax is designed to hurt those industries that create the highest carbon emissions. Because those industries pass on their increased costs to consumers, it may also hurt us all a little, which might provide an incentive for us to cut back on electricity use ourselves. Tony Abbott argues repealing the tax will save the average household $550 a year; others have suggested the saving could be as low as $150. There has also been some argument about whether the carbon tax has had a hand in the troubles at Qantas and in the car industry. Personally, I suspect that once the tax is repealed, very few of us will notice much difference, nevertheless it was a tax that was designed to hurt us.

Off shore detention has seen us incarcerate 2,000 or so desperate people without charge or trial. They have done nothing illegal, yet we have placed them behind barbed wire and under guard without any idea of their future. The legal and human rights we all enjoy we have refused to extend to them. Recent events on Manus Island have proved the detainees are not safe and their lives and treatment are shrouded in government-mandated secrecy. There are serious concerns for the mental and emotional health of detainees, particularly children. It seems to me that we have taken a sledgehammer to smash some very fragile walnuts. Offshore detention is a policy designed to hurt others.

To sum up, it seems many Australians are positively enthusiastic about deterrents that hurt others (however harsh they may be) but outraged by deterrents that hurt us (however mild).

Advance Australia Fair? I doubt it.