Pete Shmigel | We're not helping Ukraine the way it needs to be helped

What it heard in response is a chorus of criticism - not for making the commitment, but for its meagre and miserly content.

Among the descriptors attached to the Albanese government's $110 million package were: "like that of banana republic", "absolute junk", "extremely anaemic", "rust buckets", and "too little too late".

These terms are on the surface; there seems something that's deeper behind such a poor decision.

The new package is mostly old gear. It consists mainly of: a) Vietnam-era armoured personnel carriers that are being retired and are considered unsuitable for Australian diggers in combat "due to their vulnerability", and; b) so-called "Special Operations Vehicles" which are actually 20-plus year old Long-Distance Patrol Vehicles last deployed in Afghanistan and now superseded.

The Ukrainians repeatedly asked for Australia's contemporary, outstanding, and domestically-manufactured battle-proven Bushmasters and innovative Hawkei's. Despite their very diplomatic expressions of gratitude, what they got are op-shop items from other wars and excuses about possibly faulty brakes.

Though the new pledge brought Australia's total contribution to Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion to $770 million - and about 20th place among allies - its inadequacy is particularly perplexing when Australia's "war windfall" is considered.

A Bloomberg analysis released last week found that "in the 15 months since Moscow launched its invasion, the spike in energy and other commodity prices has given Australia around a $150 billion export bonanza."

Bloomberg calculated that Australia's reinvestment of the additional export income - which saved the last budget - is less than .5 per cent.

And, the Center on Clean Energy and Air, an independent think-tank, last week showed that Australia has imported more price-capped Russian oil - via the "laundromats" of China and Singapore - than any other single country in the world, including the US. This is despite the fact that it has promised not to import Russian energy products.

It seems especially wrong to, on the one hand, benefit from a war and, on the other hand, not do what's very practically possible to save people dying in that war, including 20,000 Ukrainian civilians to date.

When there's someone drowning, most wouldn't consider the cost of the life ring.

"When we are asking about Bushmasters, Hawkei's and tanks, it's not politics. It's our survival; it's the future of our children," Yuri Sak, a senior advisor to Ukraine's Defence Minister who has recently been to Australia to meet ministers and officials, told Australia's national broadcaster after the Prime Minister's announcement.

So, is it really some malice behind the government's bad move?

Given the Prime Minister's many rhetorical reassurances of being "unwavering in our resolve to condemn and oppose Russia's actions and to help Ukraine achieve victory", I suggest it's something other than meanness, be it moral or financial.

It's possibly the near-genetic reluctance of the Labor left about being involved in wars, even just and strategically necessary ones.

It's possibly cabinet dynamics and deference to Foreign Minister Penny Wong's prioritised focus on Asia and the Pacific.

It's possibly electoral politics and (wrongly) assuming there are few votes in Ukraine - though polls show that 75 per cent of Australians support military aid.

It's possibly spending constraints on the Department of Defence following the Defence Strategy Review.

I suggest, though, that each of these "possibles" is more corollary rather than causative.

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Having been to Ukraine's cities, towns and frontlines several times in the last 16 months, as a middle-class Westerner, I saw something for the first time. Real courage.

I saw first-responders stoically retrieving corpses from suburban apartment buildings destroyed by Russian missiles. I saw young creatives, who cos-play for their hobby, risk Russian shells to distribute food packages to de-occupied villages. I saw teachers who split their time between classrooms and frontlines.

Whether it's soldiers in trenches or well-heeled Kyivans in bomb shelters, Ukrainians live brave. It's a logical product of having survived a traumatic history, of earnestly believing in democracy and dignity - and of having no other choice but resilience when an aberrant aggressor is literally trying to wipe out your homes, jobs, schools, hospitals and future.

By contrast, I wonder if we Australians are still capable of bravery for better.

We are brilliant at risk management - and perhaps increasingly blind to the consequences of inaction.

We are superb at bureaucratic processes - and possibly desensitised to the horrors of tyrants and terrorists.

We speak of mateship as a core value - and potentially withhold it to a country where 39 of our fellow Australians died in the sky through Putin's murderous ways.

Not helping Ukraine the way it needs to be helped, the way it's asked to be helped, and the way we can afford to help shows that a kind of moral and managerial mediocrity may be taking hold of us.

Our democratic doldrum may be enabling lethargy over leadership and memory lapses about our proud history of sacrifice, service and contribution to the international community.

Choosing what's safe and easy can be a safe, easy and inadvertent way to choose what's wrong. The government got it wrong this week on Ukraine. If it gets it right in future, and I believe it can, it's helping itself as much as it's helping Ukrainians.