This election, are the teals ready to take on the fossil fuel lobby that’s captured the major parties?

Under the climate change policies of both the Labor and Liberal parties, the Great Barrier Reef is predicted to die, beset by catastrophic bleaching events. Photograph: C Jones/AP

Here’s a gotcha question for an intrepid journalist to put in the final moments of the campaign: Mr Morrison, Mr Albanese, why are you killing the Great Barrier Reef? Unlike other gotchas, the query wouldn’t simply test the leaders’ powers of recall.

It would go to the issue most likely to puzzle historians of tomorrow, namely: why an election preceded by catastrophic fires and floods hasn’t centred on the future to which both parties are committing us.