During this divisive, emotional, angry debate about asylum seekers, I keep on coming back to one very simple question - If I was a Sri Lankan or an Afghan father and I genuinely thought the Government or the Taliban was going to torment or kill my family what would I do? 

The answer to me is equally simple. I would do whatever it takes to get my family out of there quick smart. If that meant paying my life's savings to people smugglers and risking a sea journey in a decrepid boat across thousands of kilometres to an unknown future, I'm honest enough to say I'd do it.

I'd do anything for my young sons. I don't know any father who wouldn't. And that is what, I believe, so many of the so-called 'boat people' are doing.

Now you can argue until you're black and blue about the rights and wrongs of current government policy, previous government policy, the Pacific Solution, the Indonesian solution, Christmas Island, Baxter etc etc. So many already have. There are legitimate arguments on both sides and they should be aired and debated honestly. Obviously we can't take all asylum seekers and obviously we have to discourage such dangerous sea journeys because so many lives are lost on them. We need to implement appropriate policies and clearly we're still a long way from that.

But what sickens me is the continual attempts to demonise the asylum seekers. As though trying to get a safe life for your family is a heinous crime. Politicians on both sides do it . The Howard Government's 'Children Overboard Affair' springs to mind, so does Mr Rudd's recent references to them as "illegals", when there is nothing illegal about seeking asylum in this country, never has been.

Public forums are rife with it. In so many blogs I read, on so much talk radio, I hear hatred and contempt towards the asylum seekers. Some want their boats to sink or be sunk. Some want them machine-gunned by the Australian Navy 'as a deterrent'. Some even hoped they'd carry out their initial threat of blowing up their boat.

I just don't get it!

Let's tone down the vicious, "I'm tougher than you are" rhetoric. The politicians must realise we are talking about people here, not about cheap political opportunism.

Stop pandering and start solving.

The rest of us should ask ourselves the question - what would you do in their shoes?  I have yet to speak to any parent, even the most vehement asylum seeker critic, who wouldn't do EXACTLY what they're doing.

Identifying with them might not change your mind about what should happen to asylum seekers, but it will certainly improve the quality of the debate over their future.