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The words are deliberate: "I want people to understand how big it is, and how long it might take," because the machinery of government needs to be reshaped.

The premier goes on to "hope and pray that mother nature is leaving us alone to get on with the job of cleaning up and recovering from this event".

Yes, but … we also need to leave Mother Nature alone, and stop loading the atmosphere with carbon emissions, so that more extreme climate events which are part-and-parcel of a warming planet do not tumble down upon us with increasing frequency, as they have around the globe in the last year.