As Dorothea Mackellar confirmed in her most famous poem, not only are we a sunburnt country but also a land of droughts and rains. It is perhaps this fact of Australian life that results in our occasional scepticism about claims that we are witnessing long-term changes to our weather patterns and that these are largely due to human activities. Responding to climate change is therefore a matter of substantial debate in Australia, with some arguing that we should play a major role in global processes of policy development, some that our responses should be modest and localised and others claiming it is a scientific non-issue that requires little or no policy response.