Peter Tinley has used Australia's dependence on foreign fuel as an example of where Canberra failed to mobilise in the face of obvious challenges.
He says economic, technological and security threats are encroaching rapidly and on top of one another, outstripping the nation's well-meaning but toothless defence strategies.
A government duty-bound by law to keep Australia prepared, a commission analysing national resilience and an adviser to determine if the country is ready would help cushion blows such as the one caused by the Middle East conflict, Mr Tinley told the National Press Club on Monday.
"There was a crisis and there we are found wanting," he said.
Mr Tinley's proposal would involve passing a law which, among other things, would mean parliament and the public were informed annually about whether Australia was becoming more or less prepared.
"If this architecture or something like it was in place before the Iran crisis, we wouldn't have had the same problem," he said.
Mr Tinley's address is the RSL's latest foray into a string of hot-button political issues.
In September, it weighed into a vicious feud between Liberal frontbencher and former Special Air Services soldier Andrew Hastie and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, over a cartoon calling the coalition MP a traitor.
"The word 'traitor' has a particular meaning for somebody who's worn the uniform," Mr Tinley, who also served in the SAS, said.
"That was beyond the pale, and we need to make a contribution to civil debate."
Labor's plan to sell off 67 defence assets to rake in about $1.8 billion, including Sydney's Victoria barracks, also met full-throated resistance from the advocacy group.
The RSL's spirited response to the proposal was partly for the sake of future veterans, Mr Tinley revealed.
"We are in some disagreement with the government, but also the government's been listening," he said, with Defence Minister Richard Marles among the press club attendees.
"We're getting some movement."
On the issue of national readiness, the former state Labor minister pre-empted criticism about the RSL's position propelling the organisation out of its lane.
"This is the lane. It always has been," Mr Tinley said.
"How well this country prepares itself is a veterans' issue, because veterans and their families are among the people who pay when it does not."
Mr Tinley came to the RSL presidency in October 2025 with well-burnished military and political credentials, having served 25 years in uniform in Lebanon, Syria, Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan and Iraq, rising to the rank of major.
He also commanded the SAS counter-terrorism force infamously deployed to Christmas Island in 2001 to ward off the MV Tampa when it was carrying asylum seekers.
Mr Tinley later labelled the move, green-lit by then-prime minister John Howard, an overreaction.
After his service, he spent 15 years as a Labor MP in the WA parliament where he held several portfolios including veterans issues.
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