In my first week as the BBC's new Australia correspondent in 2019, a state of emergency was declared in New South Wales. Bushfires blazed and came very close to Sydney.

The orange haze and the smell of smoke will forever be etched in my memory.

As the country woke to pictures of red skies, destroyed homes and burned koalas in smouldering bushland, the climate change debate came to the fore.

But this wasn't a scientific debate. It was political and it was partisan.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison did not answer questions about the issue, while then Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack dismissed climate concerns as those of "raving inner-city lefties".

That was my other big memory of my first week in Australia. The leadership - after years of drought and as blazes raged across the east coast - openly throwing doubt on the effects of climate change.

This was a tussle at the heart of Australian politics.

Read the full article on the Yahoo News website, featuring Dr Imran Ahmed