Scott Morrison failed an entire generation last week. He dismissed the 300,000 young people and their parents who filled our city streets in the School Strike 4 Climate, as lacking “context and perspective”.

It was an outrageously insensitive response, and if young Australians were anxious before, they will be doubly so now. They are the most science literate generation in history, and the science says this is the most dangerous time our world has ever faced. But the leaders of the nation think everything is fine.

I was out among those young people. They are the generation raised while I was this country’s leading voice on child-rearing, and I was so proud of them it brought me to tears. They struck me as the mature ones in the whole picture, their speeches were wonderful, their manner dignified and their demands (no new coal, cutting exports and fair treatment of workers) were moderate and thoughtful. They were the prefects, sports kids, and the thoughtful nerdy ones who get their facts right. And their parents and grandparents were supporting them.

And here is the thing - many of their placards referenced Scott Morrison in person, as the one they were asking desperately to help. In response, Morrison accused them of being stooges for the unspecified aims of others. That’s hugely disrespectful, and it doesn’t begin to understand the nature of teenagers, which is in every generation to ask awkward questions we really need to answer.