As the coronavirus pandemic rides over everything, it is easy to forget that Australia has only just emerged from another once-in-a-lifetime crisis, the bushfires that consumed much of southern Australia in the summer of 2019-20.

Looking back at that earlier crisis reveals a number of factors that stand in sharp contrast to our current predicament and may help to explain some of the difficulties that we are now having in coming to terms with shifting government policy.

The first is the general level of community awareness and engagement. With the bushfires, the immediacy and localised nature of the threat meant that public support was overwhelmingly behind the firefighters in their effort to contain the fires. The media fell easily into well-worn motifs of "tight-knit communities" cooperating to save each other while "our firies" were instantly recognisable as everyday heroes in the Anzac mould. Anti-social behaviour, such as looting, was limited to occasional outbreaks and then tended to be air-brushed from the media account. The problem of time-consuming bureaucratic checks on eligibility for assistance, linked to possible rorting, was to surface only later.

With the coronavirus crisis, however, the wider community has played the role of selfish villains as much as cooperative supporters. Members of the public have been widely criticised for the widespread panic buying of household essentials (condemned as "un-Australian" by the Prime Minister) and their unwillingness to voluntarily practise "social distancing" in public places. The criticism is somewhat harsh. Stockpiling is a natural reaction to possible under-supply in a market. Shopping is generally a self-centred activity, limited only by the desire for goods and the capacity to pay. We are not normally under any obligation to leave enough for others, even the elderly and infirm. Stockpiling does not represent an "un-Australian" breakdown in community norms, like looting, so much as a collective failure to deal with an unprecedented situation.

In the same way, not engaging in social distancing reflects an understandable reluctance to change normally acceptable practices in the absence of any obvious threat. In both cases, leaders have been genuinely surprised at the lack of the community solidarity that the bushfires had led them to expect from the Australian public. Urban Australia, it turns out, is far from close-knit.

The second contrast is in the level of public confidence inspired by government professionals. During the bushfires, the government's professional experts, notably the redoubtable state and territory fire commissioners, were clearly in control, displaying calm authority, delivering straightforward, comprehensive information and giving direct answers to public questions. Disagreements over the underlying causes of the conflagrations were acknowledged and firmly dealt with but set aside as issues that could wait for another day.

With the coronavirus, however, the professional experts have proved less reliable. To begin with, both the government and the public expected the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Brendan Murphy, to reprise the role played by the unflappable NSW fire commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons. Critics of the Coalition's climate policy welcomed the government's conversion to "following the science". People looked to Professor Murphy and his colleagues for clear, unfudged advice.

But the issues have proved less straightforward. "Following the advice of our medical advisers", which has been the government's main justification for policy, may have sounded initially reassuring, but turned out to be a cover for deep and vigorous disagreement. Given the uncertainty surrounding so many aspects of the virus, the lack of consensus is not surprising. Health experts are naturally far from unanimous in their opinions of how governments should react. No one should be surprised that "following the science" is not a simple recipe for action.

In that case, however, the government's expert advisers should have levelled with the public more about the degree of uncertainty instead of dressing up their conclusions as authoritative assessments. They should also have been more open about the extent to which their medical advice has been driven by practical issues, such as shortages of medical supplies as much as purely clinical considerations. When pressed by the media, both Professor Murphy and his deputy, Professor Paul Kelly, have resorted to prevarication in support of the government's agreed line instead of speaking frankly as dispassionate experts. In their defence, it could be argued that the chief medical officer and his colleagues hold government appointments and are bound to express public support for ministers, whatever they may argue in private. In this case, however, they should not be miscast as fully independent experts.

A third contrast surrounds the issue of political leadership. The bushfires brought out clear differences between state and federal leaders. The state premiers played an effective ancillary part alongside their respective fire commissioners, offering practical support and non-partisan encouragement. The Prime Minister, however, struggled to find a convincing role. Initially wrong-footed by his decision to take a overseas holiday during the fires, he was later hampered by the federal government's uncertain responsibility in bushfire management and his difficulty in adopting a non-partisan tone.

With the coronavirus, the state premiers, emboldened by their experience in dealing with the daily challenges of the bushfires, have taken their own initiatives and, if necessary, defied the federal government's line. The Prime Minister, meanwhile, learned some lessons from his mishandling of the bushfires. He was quickly on the front foot, setting up a national "cabinet" and readily deploying the armed forces to civil duties (a move facilitated by the earlier experience). But non-partisan leadership goes against his natural grain and opposition to Labor delayed his adoption of radical income support. Whether he can fully take on the mantle of national leader in a major crisis remains to be seen.