You can't make a humane refugee policy without killing a few dozen people

Here's a quick test to see if you are a compassionate Left-winger.

If someone condemns reckless policies that lured another 50 boat people to their deaths, he has:

A: Damned inhumane policies


B: Forgotten his own humanity.

Policies that have up to 170 or even more people to their deaths are:

A: A scandal


B A relatively minor issue.

Tim Dunlop, the very model of a modern Left-winger, now supplies the correct answersL

Around 50 people die as a boat sinks off our shores and before the bodies are cold News Ltd journalists Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair are calling for the PM to resign and accusing her of having blood on her hands. It is a measure of just how badly distorted this debate has become that two mainstream journalists could so easily forget their humanity.

But they are hardly the only ones with the F-for-fail stamped on their forehead where asylum seekers are concerned. Both political parties have turned a relatively minor issue into a disgraceful policy debacle.