The commemoration of Anzac Day and the traditions and sacrifice it represents have become increasingly emotionally potent, particularly for younger generations of Australians. But the savagery of the death and destruction in Ukraine is a daily reminder of the dangerous currency of modern warfare in liberal democracies which had thought themselves to have moved beyond it. Assurances on national security issues can no longer be pushed to the romantic edges of domestic election politics. They are at its hard centre.

Yet the campaign battle over which party can best “deal” with China is, in that sense, irrelevant. The Prime Minister’s talk of sharing the same “red line” as the US about the possibility of a Chinese military base in the Solomon Islands is absurd.