iscover
Australians have long celebrated the flexibility of the distinctly Australian psychological phenomenon of “she’ll be right” and the belief that no matter how bad things get, it will all work out in the end. However, in the face of our increasingly complex and chaotic world, this belief is undoubtedly doing more harm than good.
By now, Australia’s largely apathetic relationship with the harsh ebbs and flows of history are well known.
Largely detached, insulated and unaffected by the epoch and history-defining conflagrations and events that shaped the global power paradigms for much of human history, Australia has, more recently since the 18th century, truly mastered the concept of “she’ll be right”.
While this enviable position and psychology faced challenges, most notably during the Second World War, and the impending threat of isolation from our traditional security benefactor – the British Empire – and the possibility of Japanese invasion, by and large, the nation and its people reverted to type almost immediately following the end of war.
Equally, localised natural disasters like cyclones or bushfires, pandemics and global or domestic economic turbulence have had momentary but limited impacts on the nation and its people, further entrenching a delusional belief that no matter the obstacle or the scale of the crisis, “she’ll be right”.
Today however, the world and, indeed, the nation are facing down the barrel of a reality completely divorced from that of even our most tumultuous recent past, with the nation facing the perfect storm of circumstances threatening to disrupt and dramatically reshape the global order and our place in it.
Yet much like a frog placed into a pot of water on the stove, Australia and its leaders seem to be blissfully ignorant (or perhaps, willfully ignorant) to the range of challenges facing the nation at both a macro and micro level outside of their respective cause du jour.
At the micro level, it is easy to understand why the average Australian outsources their concern to those in positions of power and influence, after all, a nine-to-five job, paying bills, raising kids and the challenges of contemporary day-to-day life are already tough enough.
When it comes to the macro level, policymakers face an uphill battle due to a number of reasons, whether it is the disinterest from the average Australian, the enduring curse of “gotcha politics” which seems to dominate both public and political debate and, of course, the perennial challenges of risk-averse, bureaucratic inertia that continues to dominate Australia and the West writ large.
Highlighting this is phenomenon is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Marc Ablong in a piece titled, Burying its head in the sand, Australia is worryingly complacent to catastrophic risk, in which he said, “Despite our famed resilience against natural disasters, Australia still struggles to take catastrophic risk seriously. In this volatile security environment, the divide between short-term comfort and meaningful long-term preparedness remains worryingly wide.”
So how do we begin to solve these systemic and entrenched issues?
Establishing frameworks, building on established precedent
Australia’s own disaster-preparedness handbooks quietly admit something most policymakers avoid saying out loud: there are scenarios out there – climate, conflict, technology, economic collapse – that will simply overwhelm us. Not challenge us. Overwhelm us. And yet our national security posture continues to behave as if the next crisis will look more or less like the last.
Despite a shelf full of emergency response plans, the system remains fragmented and reactive. Each plan sits in its own silo, well suited to routine bushfires and seasonal storms but poorly matched to existential shocks: a major war, a cascading climate disaster, a technological misfire or a nationwide supply-chain collapse.
Australia acknowledges, in writing, that truly catastrophic events would exceed our current capacity to respond, yet that insight rarely translates into the kind of whole-of-nation mobilisation or long-term investment that genuine resilience requires.
Recent reports are blunt: Australia is not prepared for war, nor for other high-end national security crises. Instead of building redundancy, hardening industry and re-engineering supply chains, we tend to hope for the best. We outsource risk to markets, insurance and international partners. We let budget cycles, not threat assessments, drive capability. It’s a kind of national complacency – comfortable, familiar and dangerous.
Ablong articulates this, saying, “Reports released in the past few months highlight that we are ill-prepared for war and other catastrophic threats. Australia relies on hope, risk transference and budget cycles rather than focusing on hard decisions, redundancy and serious mobilisation. Discussing supply chains, industrial mobilisation and whole-of-nation resilience, experts have argued that Australia has become complacent in the face of strategic shocks.”
Climate assessments now warn that climate change will upend our way of life, triggering abrupt tipping points and disasters that compound one another. Yet our adaptation measures, industrial transition and national resilience investments lag far behind what the science tells us is coming. The same pattern appears in emerging technology. Experts in AI and advanced systems caution that losing control of these technologies could be as destructive as a pandemic or a critical infrastructure attack. But Australia still lacks a national security-driven risk assessment and meaningful cross-sector coordination is limited at best.
Even the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, an institution usually focused on financial prudence rather than national survival, has sounded the alarm. Too many organisations treat risk as a compliance formality, a box to tick rather than a core leadership responsibility. This mirrors a broader cultural tendency. Australians know, instinctively, that catastrophic risks are real. Surveys show deep public concern, particularly around climate-driven events.
But that anxiety sits uncomfortably alongside the “she’ll be right” ethos, a belief that we can muddle through right up until the moment the floodwaters rise or the fire front turns.
Viewed through a national security lens, the message is stark: Australia’s prosperity, stability and sovereignty depend on moving past wishful thinking. Catastrophic risk is no longer hypothetical and resilience can’t be a side project.
It must become the organising principle of national policy, industry planning and community life.
This is something Ablong hinted at, saying, “The worst catastrophes are no longer unimaginable. They are, however, unprepared for. If we do not act, we will only have ourselves to blame.”
Building public and policymaker understanding
Engaging with and enhancing understanding and investment, particularly among the Australian public and our policymakers is the central requirement for any form of national response.
Uncomfortably, the numbers tell a story that should unsettle anyone thinking seriously about Australia’s national security. Despite living on a continent defined by fire, flood and cyclone, only about one in 10 Australians is actively prepared for an emergency.
The Red Cross’ 2023 findings paint a stark picture: while almost 70 per cent of the country was touched by severe weather last year, three-quarters of home owners still believe their homes are at little or no risk. It’s a dangerous mismatch between lived experience and personal preparedness, a national habit of assuming the worst won’t happen to us, even as it repeatedly does.
Concern has risen sharply since 2018, but action has not; Australians are worried, but they’re not ready. Meanwhile, federal spending patterns reinforce the national culture of “she’ll be right” reaction over prevention.
Between 2005 and 2022, 98 per cent of the Commonwealth’s $24.5 billion in disaster funding went to relief and recovery, not resilience. We pour money into cleaning up after catastrophe but invest comparatively little in preventing or mitigating it.
This bias makes political sense, disasters demand immediate, visible action, but from a national security perspective, it’s a strategic failure. Prevention is both cheaper and smarter yet remains chronically underfunded.
The same can also be said for national resilience and the inherent opportunities that exist by ”hardening” the nation, through appropriate infrastructure, industry and domestic workforce development, this also has dramatic impacts for social investment and cohesion as generations of younger Australians, in particular, who currently feel abandoned and disconnected from the future of the nation with the same, if not more, opportunities than their parents and grandparents.
Layered on top of this is a broader unease about Australia’s security environment and the broader regional and global shifts in the post-Second World War economic, political and strategic order.
The 2025 Lowy Poll demonstrates Australians increasingly worried about cyber attacks, coercive state power and potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific, with the Lowy poll revealing that two-thirds of Australians now see these as critical threats.
But public anxiety isn’t matched by sustained investment in risk management, by governments, businesses or individuals. In the traditional “hard power” world of defence modernisation, we continue to emphasise symbolic rather than structural modernisation and expansion.
This is further exacerbated across the corporate world, where much of corporate Australia’s risk spending remains focused on compliance rather than genuine preparedness. The same can be said for critical infrastructure protection and national resilience initiatives which lag behind both global practice and the expectations of the Australian public.
What emerges is a yawning disconnect: Australians sense the world becoming more dangerous, but the country’s risk posture – financial, strategic and cultural – has not caught up. The result is inescapably a persistent feeling that the nation is increasingly exposed and vulnerable.
If Australia wants to be truly ready for the next generation of catastrophic risks, whether strategic, climatic or technological, incremental improvements won’t cut it.
We need a national standard for catastrophic risk assessment, a framework embedded across government, industry and civil society. We need layered defences that assume systems can fail and that resilience must be built at every level: individual, community, institutional and national. And we must look to countries where preparedness isn’t an afterthought but an organising principle of public life.
Ablong articulated the urgency of this, saying, “To genuinely confront catastrophic risk, Australia must move beyond planning for yesterday’s crises and establish a robust national standard for catastrophic risk assessment and planning; embed multi-layered defences at all levels; mainstream catastrophic risk assessments into policy, procurement and civil preparedness activities; and learn from nations where national preparedness is integrated into every aspect of public and private life.”
Final thoughts
For far too long Australia has depended on “she’ll be right”. Well, in the face of the range of risks and challenges facing the nation, “she won’t be right”, and we need to accept that.
Building Australia’s weight as an independent power, with the economic heft, diplomatic clout and military capability of a great power isn’t just a lofty aim. It’s fast becoming a necessary expression of our sovereignty.
It’s a statement that Australia is prepared to take full responsibility for its own security and to play a leading role in shaping a stable, prosperous Indo-Pacific.
For too long we’ve been boxed in: dependent on China’s markets, tied to the American alliance and caught between larger players in a contest we don’t control. It doesn’t have to stay that way. As the world hardens into competing blocs of authoritarian and democratic systems, Australians deserve an honest, clear conversation about who we are and where we’re headed.
That conversation must include the Australian people, the ones who’ll carry the cost, bear the responsibility and ultimately defend the decisions taken in their name.
Real progress relies on transparency, collaboration and trust between government, industry and the public. It means rebuilding confidence in a shared national mission, one that strengthens our economy, secures critical industries and hardens the nation against economic coercion.
A strong, diverse and self-reliant economy is the bedrock of national power. It’s also our most reliable defence against external pressure, no matter where it comes from.
At the same time, we need a clear-eyed understanding of our ambitions. Are we satisfied being a shrinking “middle power” or are we ready to step up as a genuine regional leader, a nation that shapes events rather than simply responds to them?
Because without decisive investment in capability, innovation and self-reliance, we risk sliding into stagnation. We risk accelerating a kind of “managed decline”, and with it the slow erosion of our strength, prosperity and independence.
Get involved with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on Australia’s future role and position in the Indo-Pacific region and what you would like to see from Australia’s political leaders in terms of partisan and bipartisan agenda setting in the comments section below, or get in touch at
Stephen Kuper
Steve has an extensive career across government, defence industry and advocacy, having previously worked for cabinet ministers at both Federal and State levels.
