I know we all wish the major parties would work together for the betterment of Australia and that’s why calls for a bipartisan “war cabinet” to tackle the drought won’t work. Because they won’t and can’t work together.

As Gemma Tognini from The West Australian commented on Sky News, “the spirit would be willing, but the flesh would be weak”. In other words, putting them all in a room together won’t fix the political divide. We already have a room called the parliamentary chamber and they can’t agree on anything there.

The reality is a bipartisan plan to combat the drought is very much needed and our politicians can already achieve that without creating another body and another talk fest.

We know what needs to be done. 

We need to ensure farmers aren’t forced to destroy or sell valuable breeding stock so we can protect our genetics.

We need to build more dams and water infrastructure and we need to cut through the red tape stopping that from happening.

Both of those things need legislation to pass through the State and Federal Parliaments. Bipartisanship will make sure that happens. And it needs to happen quickly.

Then we need shovels in the ground. Putting politicians who don’t like each other in a room together won’t make any of that happen.