You couldn't have hoped for a better demonstration of its effectiveness than the early days of the pandemic. NSW was off to a terrible start. Covid was spreading quickly. Then troops were called in, hotels guarded, and the virus's dispersal staunched.

Victoria said "no" to help from the Defence Force and paid the price. Its inadequate hotel quarantine system collapsed. The tragedy was that all that state's pain and angst could so easily have been avoided by simply accepting Commonwealth assistance and embedding troops as part of the response.

What used to be called "aid to the civil power" and passed off in brief lessons has become a foundational mission for the Defence Force. Vivid images of the HMAS Adelaide off the burning coast in January continued with engineers restoring roads and the call-up of reservists to support the beleaguered communities. Military medics rescued small communities in Tasmania as transport units began practising safe disposal of bodies in case there was a mass outbreak. The Air Force concurrently ensured critical supplies arrived where needed.

It looked as if the system was working perfectly because it was. The military demonstrated it was ready to step into the breach. But that wasn't its job. Jet fighters aren't the right weapons to fight a fire, and tanks won't stop a virus.

It's like expecting heart surgeons to administer Covid injections: they can do it, but it's not a particularly good use of resources.

We need a Defence Force, but repeatedly calling it out to paper over gaps in our resources for coping with civil emergencies isn't the answer.

A properly equipped, fire-spotting helicopter operates for less than one-tenth of the cost of a military system (which also takes longer to service). Each soldier guarding a quarantine hotel came at a daily rate equal to more than $120,000 a year. These deployments also meant they weren't available for their main tasks. Military capability is a wasting asset, not something that can be simply turned on and off. And there's frustration in the military. Nobody enlists to be an overpaid security guard, or an unskilled labourer clearing a fire break.

The government needs to seriously address how it's going to meet these future challenges. Floods, fires and pandemics aren't going to suddenly vanish. Climate change is changing the spectrum of threats to our society. We need to change our response accordingly.

Next time we won't be so lucky. Both the military and existing disaster organisations are insisting on the need for a new civil defence structure: one capable of responding dynamically to the massive new threats we're facing. The next scourge won't be like the last.

It's time to put some proactive proposals for urgently needed reforms on the table.