That’s what Kim Huynh told a conference in Adelaide this week and in so many ways, he’s right. He’s definitely right about the Coalition. I hope and pray he's not 100 per cent right about Labor or the Greens.

Huynh, of the Australian National University and one of Australia’s leading scholars on refugees and migration, has, of course, seen this elevation of border security as an election issue before.

"This is not too different to 'Children Overboard' and that was just before an election," he said.

"I only wish it was more complicated than it is, to ramp up the fear factor."

The story so far (at least in the last 10 days): Kerryn Phelps, who brings new meaning to the word "coalition", wrangled independents, the Greens and Labor to pass a vote on the medical evacuation of ill asylum-seekers to Australia. Government decides Christmas Island will be reopened to take in those ill asylum seekers. Labor says OK. Not quite enough fury directed at the Coalition whose dumb idea this is (there are just six beds on Christmas Island and even the president of the island’s council admits residents are often flown to Perth for treatment), but instead, directed at members of the "small-c" coalition, particularly the Labor Party, which at least got a medical evacuation bill through the godforsaken parliament that is the 45th.

Now, the Coalition is chucking an absolute tanty about the bill itself and Christian Porter, the Attorney-General for this bumbling government, is busy telling anyone who will listen that the bill is riddled with errors: "The advice we have received is that there is a very significant drafting error in the bill which Labor pushed through the Parliament".

Except he won't provide the detailed legal advice (because the last time he did that, he looked like a politician who struggles with facts) so we will never know exactly what the solicitor-general’s wrote.

But here is what we know about the health of asylum seekers. When we send them to Christmas Island, we are forcing them to confront the place where some have experienced torment and despair. That’s the informed view of Christine Rufener, clinical psychologist and the mental health activities manager for Medecins sans Frontieres. She says we have known for years the effects of detention include mental illness. It has a severe effect for years after detention ends, and even affects their physical condition. She says they are more likely to be ill for longer.

And for those who are about to say, oh, those asylum seekers are free to go back to where they came and they can walk the sunny streets of Manus and Nauru, that’s not freedom. Freedom is being able to get to safety and comfort, to a society where you can fully integrate, where you can maintain a social role, start a business if you want, get a job. Freedom is not being kept in a place against your will and separated by a big ocean.

MSF was forced to leave Nauru last year – perhaps revenge for the charity’s report on the health of asylum seekers on Nauru. Rufener tells me that the Nauruan government refuses to respond to any correspondence on the matter of the health of the abandoned asylum-seekers. MSF remains open to the possibility of collaboration but that takes two. That hasn’t stopped MSF from continuing to provide support where it can. She runs a team of psychologists who consult by telephone or Skype; not perfect, but at least a stopgap for those who can’t get help. I wonder if they feel worried about telling their experience on phones.

"They are so used to telling their stories and so beaten down by the system they want people to hear them."

She means psychological support, but maybe they could also talk to Australians. We need more of those voices as we crash towards the next election, as the major parties pretend that our most important challenge is border security.

The acceptance of the Christmas Island ‘solution’ by Labor might be a useful ploy for it to pretend to acquiesce to this but let’s hope it’s just a way to shut down the Coalition’s wedging. Dean of arts at Monash University and professor of criminology Sharon Pickering says Christmas Island, as an Australian territory, provides "at best a veneer of respectability” to our imagined problem of refugees.

"Until a major political party comprehends our responsibility to refugees and asylum-seekers in a calm fully-integrated and comprehensive way, we will always be susceptible to the politics of fear," she says.

If not, we may just have to wait for the next generation of voters to put politicians in their place. Pickering is buoyant about the possibilities: "Young people want a different kind of leadership. I think young people believe we have not been the stewards of the world we should have been".

It’s women my age too. A friend unkindly characterised us as "doctor’s wives in blue ribbon Liberal seats". Maybe, but we are increasingly anxious about the values which are being bandied about. Let’s stand for big hearts and not small minds.

Jenna Price is an academic at the University of Technology Sydney.