As parliament returns for the first time since the May election, talk is focused on productivity, disastrous childcare failures and how Australia should position and prepare itself amid rising global turmoil.

If our leaders are serious, they should also make time to look back on the events of a week ago, when federal court justice Michael Wigney handed down a judgment in Cairns that is likely to echo for years to come – and says just as much about what lies ahead as the latest rhetoric from Washington and Beijing.

Much of the initial reaction to the judgment has understandably focused on the immediate bottom line. Wigney found the federal government did not have a legal responsibility to protect the Torres Strait Islands from a climate crisis that is already being experienced.

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It was a devastating result for Uncle Pabai Pabai and Uncle Paul Kabai, the elders from Boigu and Saibai islands – who brought the case – as well as their communities and the civil society representatives who supported them. But it is unlikely to be the end. And Wigney stressed that, on facts and moral weight, their case was strong.

It is worth sitting with what he said in his summary. Every member of parliament should read it.

Wigney found the evidence showed the Torres Strait Islands, the collection of low-lying coral cays and sand and mud islands between Cape York and Papua New Guinea, are already being ravaged – his word – by the effects of human-induced climate change. Rising sea levels, storm surges and other extreme events are causing flooding and sea-water inundation.........

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