Given the way migration, refugees and questions of race and religion have been politicised in this country any action in this space will always be controversial.

The latest suggestion, which Mr Tudge said had grown out of extensive consultation with migrant communities over the past six months, would require anybody seeking permanent residency to be able to demonstrate an ability to communicate in "conversational English".

While this is a significant pull-back from last year's unsuccessful bid to limit the granting of Australian citizenship to migrants with English language skills well above the community average, it is more far reaching in that it will affect a lot more people.

And, of even more concern to many, it imposes a barrier at the time and point of entry; not further down the track when individuals would have had the chance to improve their language skills.

Many of the Government's critics have resorted to stating the obvious; reminding us modern Australia is a nation of migrants and that more than 7.5 million migrants have settled here since the end of World War II.

We are repeatedly told overseas born residents make up over a quarter of the current population and that many of the people who came here from Southern Europe in the 1950s and the 1960s had little or no spoken or written English.

The same would be true for large numbers of the Vietnamese refugees who arrived by boat in the 1970s.

We are also told the vast majority set about rectifying this as quickly as possible in order to improve their job prospects, open businesses and converse with their neighbours.

These well worn, and incontestable, arguments miss the specific problem identified by Mr Tudge and his colleagues however.

That is that the Australia of 2018 is very different to the Australia of 1950. Mass immigration over almost 70 years has created multiple concentrations of foreign language speakers in all of our major capitals.

It has long been possible to migrate to Sydney or Melbourne and to marry, get a job and raise a family within your own ethnic and linguistic community. The incentives to learn English, to explore questions of broader Australian identity and to integrate that existed 60 years ago are no longer there.

Mr Tudge, who notes that as a result of current policy and practice there are now more than 820,000 permanent residents with "little or no English at all", is concerned about the rise of "parallel communities" - enclaves existing alongside mainstream Australian society but not integrated into it.

While his catchcry "you need to be able to communicate to assimilate" comes across as simplistic it actually goes to the heart of the problem.

Critics of the solution he has proposed need to go further than just casting stones. If they don't like what is on the table then they should propose something better.

To do otherwise is to turn our backs on what could soon be a major threat to social cohesion and national unity.