'National security issue': Turnbull tells Q&A Morrison must step up response to bushfire crisis

'This is an issue that needs leadership,' Malcolm Turnbull tells ABC panel show

Malcolm Turnbull has called on Scott Morrison to step up his response to catastrophic bushfires fuelled by climate change, declaring that emergency management in Australia needs to be restructured because the threat is now a "national security issue".

Before a speech to an energy conference on Tuesday where he is expected to lament that climate change has become "a political battlefield", Turnbull told the ABC on Monday night the Morrison government had to provide hands-on leadership and coordinate a national response to a bushfire emergency, which has claimed six lives and destroyed more than 680 homes, and is expected to intensify in coming days as summer temperatures breach 40C.