Life is about and defined by choices – how we make them, what we decide, and how we live with the consequences. Governments have a particular responsibility as we rely on them to make choices on our behalf, especially the bigger national choices that we feel somewhat powerless to make or influence, while they use our money to fund them.

Australian Defence Force troops and members of Forest Fire Management Victoria clear felled trees on the Princes Highway just outside Genoa. Credit:Private Luke Jones/7RAR 1 Brigade/ADF

It is reasonable for us to expect these choices will be in the national interest, rather than to favour a particular group or interest, or for short-term political benefit.

It is of considerable concern as to just how far we have drifted from this ideal. Sadly, the drift has occurred over several governments, so only tends to be recognised as it becomes a crisis. This is certainly the case with both current national disasters, the drought and the bushfires. Our governments were poorly prepared for both, and are struggling to respond.

Both major parties, over the past couple of decades, played short-term political games with climate change rather than address its magnitude and urgency. We are left in the unimaginable position of still having no climate action plan, no energy policy, no national disaster plan, no waste-management policy, no fuel security strategy, and no transition strategies to achieve a low-carbon society by mid-century.