Before getting practical on asylum policy, let's change our discourse

It was a foolish moment when prime minister Bob Hawke promised that by 1990 no child in Australia would be living in poverty. After all, what are the solutions to child poverty, to crime, to educational inequality? Likewise, it would be a foolish academic who would offer 'the solution' to the problem of asylum seekers. Intractable social problems do not have simple solutions. But that doesn't mean that we can say or do nothing about the problems of asylum seekers - we can do considerably better.