This is akin to Mark Latham's bullish handshake with John Howard, or Alexander Downer's glib undergraduate "things that batter" reference to the domestic violence element of his own party's campaign.

When you look at the seriousness that Fraser, Hawke, Keating and Howard brought to the prime ministerial task, Morrison does not cut it. He is just a grab-bag of slogans and PR mush, happy to employ any tactic to win an instant cheap point against his opponents or justify the unjustifiable. He got away with it in May. It was not a miracle - it was just that Australians were not paying enough attention to see through the PR charlatan.

In the heat of an election, glib PR slogans, while people are a bit turned off, can pull off a "miracle". But when reality bites and people's attention is riveted, they see through them.

An increasing number of Australians must now be feeling utterly duped by the Liberal and National climate-science deniers. The crime of the deniers in the Coalition, and the failure of others in the Coalition to bring them to heel, is that they made it respectable and tenable for ordinary Australian voters to hold a climate-denial position.

They could hold that position at social functions and family conversations with their head held high because the Treasurer brought a lump of coal into Parliament and because the selfish profiteering fossil-fuel industry provided them with any number of specious science-denying arguments, which good political leaders should have put to rest.

It is going to be very hard for those Australians who bought in to this rubbish to find a self-respecting way out. So those who did not get duped should go easy on any "I told you so" stuff, as it will only make it harder for people to accept the reality of global heating and the need for action.

The primary task of a prime minister is national security. But when Morrison was warned by a host of former fire chiefs in November, 2018, that subsequent fire seasons like 2019-20's were set to consist of unprecedented horrors, he ignored them - because it might look like he was taking global heating seriously. Their predictions, just like the predictions of climate scientists, turned out to be deadly accurate.

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A prime minister and government are supposed to act to protect the nation. Of course, no amount of action by Australia alone would have prevented the fires. But because of a decade of Coalition climate-science denial and inadequate emissions-reduction policies, we are in no position to urge the rest of the world to do more, which we now must do because this dry continent is almost as vulnerable to the effects of global heating as the Pacific islands. We should be at the forefront of action. And it makes economic sense to be a renewable energy leader.

But, no, the Coalition preferred to do anything to protect the profits of the fossil industries.

They denied the planet was heating, until the facts were obvious. Then they denied humans had anything to do with it. And now, even if they acknowledge that humans are to blame, they say that Australia's part is so small that it is pointless for us to bother. Or they say the costs are too great.

But the costs of not acting and setting an example to the world are far greater. Burning fossil fuels for electricity, and oil for transport, should be phased out as quickly as possible.

It requires a change of thinking, by voters and politicians.

The Vietnam War is a good analogy. The Liberal prime ministers Menzies, Holt and McMahon sent young conscripted Aussie boys to die in a fruitless war that had nothing to do with their worldview that communism was about to take over the world, including Australia. Twaddle. Labor opposed the war from the beginning, despite its initial popularity.

This is why Labor must now double down on climate policy, not walk away.

Global heating is more serious than Vietnam. This massive bushfire season should cause a change in thinking. But it does not seem to be happening. Morrison refuses to change Australia's emissions policy.

The fossil apologist Coalition MP Craig Kelly humiliated and embarrassed Australia on British prime-time television and drew the world's attention to the weakness and selfishness of our climate policy.

These terrible fires have not resulted in one mea culpa among the Coalition science deniers.

This is why Morrison is not fit to be prime minister. John Howard, faced with the crisis of Port Arthur, changed his worldview and called in the guns, against the hardcore objections of his key rural constituents. Hawke and Keating, faced with massive world economic changes, shifted their whole policy outlook and broke down protectionism, against the hardball objections of core-constituency union vested interests.

Malcolm Fraser faced down the white-is-right view of the world held by most in his party, and did more than any Commonwealth of Nations leader to end apartheid in South Africa.

Even Kevin Rudd, faced with world economic meltdown, had the guts to go against the grain and listen to public service advice to put cash into people's hands. And Australia avoided recession.

You can see the pattern of good Australian leadership. It happens when the leader has the guts to put aside all previously held views to meet the needs of the new event. But this gutless, miracle-believing, market-driven prime minister, without an ounce of spine to call Craig Kelly and the science-denying National Party out, has missed his moment. The bushfires could have been his road to Damascus - instead, judging by his reactions, they are to be a road to hell paved by not enough good intentions.

Scotty from Marketing, history has dealt you this card. It is bigger than Howard and the sporting shooters; Fraser and the white chaps, or Hawke and Keating and their union mates. The choice is yours: go down with the fossil-fuellers as a nobody, or rise to the occasion. Announce a quick transition to zero carbon and ways to get there, or be a nothing prime minister.

But, unlike earlier leaders, it seems Morrison has already decided to make no changes, despite the threat to Australia's security. And that is why he is unfit to be prime minister.