The use of detention centres for individuals who arrive in Australia without visas and subsequently seek asylum, the allocation of a certain number of places in our immigration intake on humanitarian grounds and the overall size of Australia’s immigration program were the main topics addressed, which was hardly surprising given the public debate at the time and the background of those in attendance.

When questions were taken, after a detailed exposition of the Government’s position which was delivered with conviction but was remarkably free of pejorative terminology, the level of passion rose steeply.

Representatives of communities which include amongst their membership successful applicants for refugee status gave moving accounts of difficulties faced by those seeking to integrate into Australian society, delivered heart-wrenching stories of the difficulties in having families reunited in the safety of Australia and questioned the policy of detaining applicants for asylum.

The Minister treated each question seriously and no one would have left without having heard the Government’s fullest explanation of the rationale for policies which have sharply polarised opinions.

If there was a sign of anger, as against the occasional show of irritation, it came when the Minister was effectively accused of being party to the promotion of racism for political purposes, with the asylum seekers’ ethnicity allegedly being central to Government policies.

Consistent with statements made by all representatives of the Federal Government, the Minister flatly denied that there is any racist component in the Government’s policy, although he did not deny that some Australians who clearly are racist are relishing the opportunity to espouse prejudice and bigotry in the course of a vigorous public debate.

The answer to the question did not end at this point however, as the Minister launched into an attack on people who had used "extravagant" language in a way which he regarded as both unhelpful and hurtful.

After dismissing as ridiculous commentators who have claimed that the detention centres represent "the apartheid they left behind in South Africa", he addressed a questioner, who was Jewish, directly.

"There are people who compare the detention centres with concentration camps in Nazi Germany. This is not only wrong but diminishes the tragedy of those who know what it is like to experience a concentration camp, particularly members of the Jewish community."

I do not intend, in this column, to enter into any discussion of the Government’s immigration policy or how it is administered, let alone canvass the specifics of the options available to our or any other government in a world in which so many human beings seek to escape from injustice, cruelty and threats to their lives, while so few places are legally available to them in other countries.

The discussion on these issues needs to, and does, take place elsewhere, with many informed, compassionate and creative individuals contributing to a discussion on the nature of our society and the future of our nation.

But when, in Australia in the year 2002, the term "concentration camp" is used, I have little doubt that the image evokes is of the concentration camps established by the Nazis preceding and later part of the genocide of European Jewry.

From the way in which the term has been used in various letters to the editors, public pronouncements and invocations to action it is apparent that, by and large, it is used to try to paint the Government in the colours of the Nazi SS or, at the very least, to portray anyone who does not share their passion against the Government policy as no better than a person who would have sat by and allowed the murder of Jews, Gypsies, the disabled and other victims of Hitler’s regime.

In response to criticism that the comparison is as misguided as it is odious, a variety of correspondents in the mainstream media have produced a grab-bag of purported origins of the term, acknowledging in this way that they do not want to say publicly that Australia is Nazi Germany, but rarely admitting that this is not as much a discussion of etymology as it is of public understanding.

Just as it is offensive, particularly to those whose experiences as individuals and as part of a community included the crimes of Nazism, to treat concentration camps as handy analogies for any unpleasant form of incarceration, it is also counter-productive.

There are many Australians who want changes to the way requests for asylum are processed and the way in which applicants for asylum are treated, but want nothing to do with individuals and groups which portray as Nazis the Government, the Opposition and others who believe that detention of asylum seekers is the best of many unpleasant options before those who are trying to administer Australia’s immigration program.

This language may in some cases be the result of carelessness, in others due to a lack of understanding of the difference between the administration of Australia’s immigration policies and the actions of Nazi Germany, in others still part of a verbal assault on those with whom they disagree.

It is counter-productive, offensive, hurtful and inappropriate. For any, if not all, of these reasons it has no place in an informed and intelligent public debate.