You hear plenty of strange things when you work in retail, but I can’t forget the afternoon I received an astonishingly calm call from a shop manager in Cairns. The flood-prone city was under water. Again. The aftermath of another tropical cyclone had left the place looking like a lagoon or one of those floating Asian cities. She was two floors up, sitting halfway out of the shop window, contemplating the suitability of the drop if she lost her footing trying to get reception on a dying mobile.

‘Heya…’ began the casual call. The line was thick with static and I could hear the wind buffeting around her. ‘Would it be alright if I climbed out the window and down this palm tree? I like … don’t really wanna go downstairs because there’s a croc hanging around in the flooded ground floor of the shopping centre. Big one. You know, near the escalator? It’s like, waist deep.’

The brand new shopping centre had transformed itself into a dystopian scene complete with prehistoric aquatic predators guarding the escalators. I didn’t bother checking with human resources or OH&S. The chances of there being ‘crocodile safety protocols’ wedged between ‘proper placement of mouse pads to avoid hand strain’ and ‘checking all rugs are flat to reduce trip hazards in the workplace’ seemed unlikely.

‘Can you climb the palm tree safely?’ I asked.

‘Yep. Done it before.’

At this point, I did not press her as to when and why she had previously mounted the palm tree.

The staff member climbed down the palm tree and took the rest of the day off. Presumably the croc eventually relinquished its retail habitat once Cairns dried out a little.

This was more than a decade ago and I can’t help but feel as if we’re dealing with a different breed of Australians.

While we used to sit in school, begging the temperature to creep up over 42 so we could go home and head off to the beach, today’s kids quiver in terror at the Bureau of Meteorology as they sit in climate-controlled terrariums murmuring about the evils of capitalism. If a croc showed up in the locker room, something tells me they’d lay on its back taking selfies and start legal proceedings against the nearest coal company for animal cruelty even as it took hold of their leg and started a death roll.

Cairns was not the only incident of crazy weather to cross my desk.

The manager of a Sydney store called me once, panicked because both her Cluster Manager and State Manager had hung up on her, accusing her of wasting time with pranks. She was hysterical, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

Out of nowhere, her shopping centre had been hit by a genuine, movie-style tornado that had ripped part of the ceiling off, flipped over a railway demountable building, and blown in the huge glass fire doors – trapping one of our customers underneath.

She was holding the phone, staring down at a slightly flattened but very much annoyed customer with their features squished against the glass like a cartoon. The door was too heavy for her to lift and the whole shopping centre was in a state of pandemonium. She needed someone to come and help, but for the rest of Sydney, it was a beautiful day with the faintest smudge of grey in the North-West. None of the city staff believed her story about a rogue tornado marauding around the mountains.

She was frustrated, sure, but at no point did the phrase ‘catastrophic climate change’ warrant a mention.

It was just Australia being Australia and doing weird weather stuff.

Tornadoes happen. Crocodiles happen. It’s not the end of the world.

Many point to the Covid era as the moment Australia’s culture of ‘Safetyism’ began, but I’d wager it was merely the moment it became undeniable. The tipping point where the hypochondriacs and professional worriers outnumbered the chilled-out larrikins. It’s when we stopped being ‘Australians’ and became something less – a weaker, frightened, unrealistic bunch of people incapable of embracing our land of droughts and flooding rains.

It used to be an open secret that this beautiful country set out to kill us. We joked about it. Survived it. The states and territories bonded over the mutual danger that arose between the brief periods of postcard weather which we (rather sneakily) sold to the world.

Newspapers this morning are printing headlines claiming this is ‘the biggest flood of the century!!!’ in Cairns, neglecting to mention that we’re not very far into this century, or that Cairns and the surrounding areas are famous for massive floods. Why can’t it just be a big Queensland flood? Why does it have to be an excuse to tax us for breathing?

Not only is Cairns a flood-prone region that has experienced extremely high floods, it is a known risk that local councils and governments should be well prepared for if they were not so busy wasting time on Welcome to Country and Net Zero.

Why is every flood a scramble? Why is every flood a period of bedlam? Why are we watching scenes of drowned planes and people stranded on rooftops with no one to help them? Why are authorities bickering over when and if the Defence Force should become involved?

There should be a set of events that automatically trigger well-rehearsed responses and not only for Cairns, for the entire East Coast. I hate to bring the Romans into it, but they wouldn’t put up with this. Our emergency response processes are a joke. Our infrastructure, despite spending tens of billions on Defence spending, is wholly incapable of a few rescue airlifts. How would we fight a war? The simple answer is, we cannot. We are running a charade. We cleanup disasters while Albanese lumbers around the world like some kind of lord and saviour when he cannot even protect Australians from a bit of rain. He is a joke.

Flooding events – like the one taking place in Cairns right now – do not reveal some sort of mythical approaching (global boiling?) apocalypse, they highlight the failure of state governments to properly prepare for these wholly predictable emergency situations. That is why politicians are quick to blame carbon or your last flight or the steak you had on Sunday. They blame climate change so they do not have to answer difficult questions about their failure to properly prepare for Australia’s rough lifestyle.

Every single time there is a flood, fire, or drought the emergency network crumbles … and that is without addressing the bone-headed idiocy of sacking unvaccinated workers. Mayors panic and call for the military. The military wonder who the heck it was that called them. Politicians don high-vis outfits and stand out in the rain to make their concern appear authentic. There’s a lot of head-shaking and solemn nodding. Today, the press is doubling down with blame centred on the Bureau of Meteorology for not warning them enough, despite a full week of click-bait screeching.

If we are, as the young generation so eloquently put it, ‘Like – the smartest generation – like – ever…’ why do these emergency events reveal an endless cycle of ill-preparedness?

The ‘it’ll never rain again’ mob of global boiling proponents are getting fainter. Instead, residents are asking, why isn’t all this water filling our dams? Will we be here in two years talking about droughts and water shortages? The answer is yes, because we have transitioned into incompetency.

Floods in the North are part of the natural cycle – it’s the reason the whole place looks like the Garden of Eden.

Once again, the locals are left to rescue each other, just as we had to on the Mid North Coast when the fire truck was stuck in ankle deep water at the top of the road while locals waded through with tractors and utes, and helicopters took photos for the news instead of dropping food.

Everyone knows that a slow-moving, low category cyclone brings excessive amounts of rain. Authorities have failed the people of Cairns and they are doing everything in their power to nudge the blame away from themselves. Do not let them.