Labor MP urges war-like national mobilisation to tackle Australia's existential threat of climate crisis

Mike Kelly says civil defence corps needed to tackle bushfires and failure to act would be 'most serious dereliction of duty in our history'

The federal Labor MP Mike Kelly has called for a war-like national mobilisation effort to deal with the existential threat of climate change, warning that a failure to act would be the "most serious dereliction of duty in our history".

The member for the New South Wales electorate of Eden-Monaro, which includes huge areas of the NSW south coast and the Snowy Mountains where destructive bushfires continue to burn, has called for the federal government to establish a civil defence corps (CDC) that would operate as a national disaster response reserve, and said compulsory national service might be necessary.