As the disaster of the Queensland Floods was unfolding in front of me, the first thought that hit me was how tragic this was. Tragic that lives, homes, businesses and towns were lost.

I felt that my reaction to the floods was the same as that of all Australians.

Unfortunately, this was not the case. In the days following the floods, I found myself inundated with angry emails and hate mail about asylum seekers. What were they doing to help Queensland? Why were they taking the homes we could be using to house Queensland flood victims? How could we be spending millions on them when are own people are battling? We should be stopping all international aid now.

These responses made me think about the hate mail that I have received in the past and I realized that it seems to peak at times of tragedy.

The day after the Christmas Island Boat tragedy where 40 men, women and children seeking asylum died at sea I received an email that started with ‘Oh, happy days! Yes, the deaths of those slime-bag no-good invaders has elated me, to the extreme..I am totally elated the bastards are dead, but, I am unhappy they all didn't die'.

In the aftermath of the Victorian bushfires I also received endless emails questioning why, when everyday Australians are battling bushfires, we are ‘paying illegals four times what a pensioner gets and they live it up in four star hotels while our people go homeless'.

What stuck out for me was not so much how baseless this was (asylum seekers have no access to any form of Centrelink and are 120 times more likely to be homeless than the average Australian), but that it comes at such a time and is the first thought in some people's minds after horrific events.

As Aussies we are so generous and open to helping each other in times of need and danger. This is part of being Australian that I am proud of. But our responses to tragedies are also times when the worst in people comes out, as the emails I received show.

In same breath we turn our backs on asylum seekers, people fleeing unimaginable horrors and danger and some people immediately jump to conclusions about asylum seekers.

I am forced to ask what would prompt someone, after a tragedy such as the Queensland floods, to question what asylum seekers are doing. To question asylum seekers who speak of their sadness at seeing Australians suffer through a tragedy ‘I know what it is like to lose everything, I am very sad to see this'. Asylum seekers who put their hands up to help - such as the asylum seekers who (through the ASRC's Employment service) went and helped bushfire victims clean up the debris and ruin of their homes. Or the 70 asylum seeker men in detention in Darwin who asked the Department of Immigration to give to the Queensland flood victims a piece of what little money they had left.

It's great that as Aussies we rally when people are in need, but we need to start asking why does that change when we think of boat people and asylum seekers?

Is it okay as Australians to turn our backs on some people in danger because they came by boat or because they may be Muslims or a different colored skin? If the answer is no, then it's time to rethink a new conversation when it comes to asylum seekers and openly question why tragedies in Australia trigger such anger and hatred towards asylum seekers in some people.

The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Yahoo!7.