The biggest news moments of 2019 in a year full of tragedy and triumph
From unprecedented achievements in space, to the destruction of ancient relics, natural disasters and senseless acts of terror, 2019 was full of tragedy and triumph. We take a look back at the major moments of the year that was.
SA News
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JANUARY
FAR SIDE: It was a year when paranoia about the Chinese was never far away. Whether they were spying on us, taking over our universities or buying up all our farms, China was constantly in the news. But our biggest trading partner started the year with a space adventure and landed the first human-made object, the communications probe Chang’e 4, on the far side of the moon. The Chinese refused to confirm that’s where they found the newly low-profile Nick Xenophon, although the former senator did bob up to act for Huawei later in the year. Coincidence?
GLOBAL LEADER: Sure, as South Australians we’re used to a bit of heat in summer, but this was just ridiculous. On January 24, the temperature topped out at 46.6C (116 Fahrenheit for our older readers), making it the hottest day ever recorded in Adelaide. But it wasn’t only a local record that fell. For that brief, shining moment, Adelaide was the hottest city on the planet, even if only in terms of temperature. Still, Adelaideans, it could have been worse. It was 49.5C in Port Augusta.
FEBRUARY
DIG DIG DIG: The debate over the how and when (if not why) of what to do with South Rd seems to have lasted forever. Possibly even longer than South Rd has been in existence, The previous state Labor government had done it in bits and pieces over many years but with its loss in the March 2018 election, the responsibility was handed over to Steven Marshall’s government. Who decided tunnels could be the answer. From the River Torrens to Anzac Highway, then again from Edward St to Tonsley. The only problem? Could cost more than $5 billion.
CARDINAL SIN: Australia’s most senior catholic, the Cardinal George Pell, had been dogged by rumour and innuendo for many years. The jury delivered its guilty verdict in December last year but a suppression order kept that quiet until February. The unanimous guilty verdict found Pell had sexually abused two choirboys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in the ‘90s. He was sentenced to six years in jail. One appeal to the Victoria’s Court of Appeal has been dismissed and the case is now headed to the High Court.
HEALTH KICK: The troubles at SA Health would hit the headlines all year and even attract the attention of ICAC’s Bruce Lander, who would then have a spat with premier Steven Marshall about it. But it was Health minister Stephen Wade who had to explain ramping, deaths because of ramping, why it was sacking nurses etc. Opposition health spokesman Chris Picton kept sniping away, ignoring the irony that many of the problems had been created by the previous Labor administration. Head toecutter Mark Mentha, brought in to clean up the books, called the Central Adelaide Local Health Network the “most broken organisation’’ he had seen.
MARCH
MASSACRE: The news when it started to filter through was almost too horrible to believe. A gunman had murdered 51 people in Christchurch, New Zealand at prayer in two mosques. And just to add to the horror had lifestreamed the barbarity on social media. The gunman was a 28-year-old far right-wing terrorist and white supremacist from Australia. New Zealand swiftly changed gun laws to outlaw assault and semiautomatic rifles but it was sadly too late to prevent the carnage.
PICTURE THIS: Carlton’s Tayla Harris has been a star of the AFLW. Talented, athletic, poised, Harris is the kind of footballer all young kids should aspire to emulate. Yet when a picture of her kicking a goal in her trademark style was posted online, it attracted the worst kind of vile sexist nonsense from people whose, presumably, greatest sporting achievement is making it all the way from the couch to the fridge. Harris took on the idiots, posting “Here’s a pic of me at work … think about this before your derogatory comments, animals.’’ Harris had the last laugh. Her kick was immortalised in a bronze statue that is 3.3m high.
APRIL
WELL FLAGGED: The AFLW has been one of the nation’s sporting success stories since it started in 2017. And the shining star of the competition has been the Adelaide Crows. The Crows won the first AFLW flag in 2017 and followed that up with another success this year. Adelaide obliterated Carlton 10.3 (63) to 2.6 (18) in front of a full house at Adelaide Oval to be crowned premiers. The Crows have also produced the league’s best player in former basketball Olympian Erin Phillips. Phillips again won he medal as best on ground, even though she badly injured her knee and was forced off the ground in the third quarter.
DAME SHAME: Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral is one of the world’s most iconic buildings, so when it was engulfed in flames and, for a while, appeared to be going to be destroyed the world watched in fascinated horror. As it was, the Cathedral’s landmark spire collapsed and much of the centuries-old building was gutted. Some religious relics, including the crown of thorns, that may have been worn by Jesus Christ, when he was crucified survived the inferno. It is believed the fire started during renovation work on the spire. French president Emanuel Macron pledged the Cathedral would be rebuilt in five years.
INSIDE MAN: Australian hacker Julian Assange had been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for seven years before emerging to be arrested and taken to Belmarsh prison. Assange had taken refuge with the Ecuadorians as he tried to avoid various legal problems, including rape allegations in Sweden and espionage charges in the US. The espionage charges stemmed from his Wikileaks website publishing thousands of secret US government documents in 2010 about military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wikileaks also published a quarter of a million US diplomatic cables, causing the Americans severe embarrassment. Assange is still in jail fighting US efforts to extradite him to face those espionage charges.
MAY
MIRACLE MAN: When Scott Morrison elbowed aside incumbent Malcolm Turnbull and challenger Peter Dutton to become PM last year, it was widely assumed the Liberal Party was no chance to win the next federal election. Such assertions failed to take into account the general ineptitude of Labor leader Bill Shorten and Morrison’s own ability to transform himself from a hard line immigration minister and treasurer into some form of suburban daggy dad. Morrison’s transformation from Hyde into Jekyll convinced enough so that the Liberals squeaked back in for another term.
LEGEND DEPARTS: It’s easy to view former prime minister as not only a politician from a different time, but possibly also from a different planet. In the decade before he died at age 89, Hawke had seen six prime ministers take the oath of office. Such turmoil, obviously provoked much sentimentality in those that valued the stability of leaders such as Hawke, who was PM for almost nine years. But Hawke was also a moderniser, a persuader who instigated great change and took most of the country with him. Hawke will be remembered as one of the nation’s great prime ministers.
HOLLYWOODLAND: It’s a long way from the bright lights of Tinsel Town to the southern suburbs of Adelaide, but that’s where Oscar winner Cate Blanchett found herself this year. Blanchett was filming the TV series Stateless, the story of the wrongful detention of Australian woman Cornelia Rau. Pictures from the set showed a dressed-down Blanchett in a purple and pink pastel tracksuit with a cigarette in hand, being sheltered by a crew member holding a Bunnings umbrella. Blanchett wasn’t the only film royalty to pass through Adelaide. Harry Potter himself, or Daniel Radcliffe as it says on his birth certificate was here filming the drama Escape from Pretoria.UK
JUNE
LET ME PLAY: Women’s football has come a long way in recent years (see Adelaide Crows, Erin Phillips) but Casey McElroy from the small town of Padthaway in the state’s south east came a cropper when she pushed one boundary too many. The 27-year-old McElroy filled in for the Padthaway men’s reserve team against Kingston in the Kowree Naracoorte Tatiara Football League. However, rules bar women from playing in men’s competition. And she was also unregistered. McElroy was initially banned for six weeks, which was three quarters of the looming women’s season, which was reduced to four on appeal.
TAXING TIMES: When state treasurer Rob Lucas delivered his budget, there was initially not a lot of attention paid to proposed changes to land tax laws. But land tax would become a running, festering sore for Lucas and premier Steven Marshall. That the opposition was led by Property Council state director Daniel Gannon, who had worked for both Lucas and Marshall, only added to the intrigue. Eventually, after five months of pain, and five rewrites of policy, the government ushered its land tax changes through parliament. Only problem was the original policy and the final policy were vastly different.
MARCHING IN THE STREET: China, famously, is not a big fan of concepts such as democracy and civic dissent. So, when millions of Hong Kong residents took to the street to protest what they saw as increasing Chinese intrusion on their rights and already diminishing freedoms it was a tense moment. The spark was a bill that would have allowed extradition to China. The protests grew violent and targeted tourism assets such as the Hong Kong airport, while two protesters have been killed. Visitor numbers to Hong Kong have plummeted and the economy has gone into free fall as a result.
JULY
PICTURE PERFECT: What’s better than a time machine to go back to the South Australia of the 1980s to relive the days of stonewash jeans and big hair? Perhaps, a cache of negatives from the famous photography outfit Studio 2000. (Quick explanation: People used to put a thing called film in cameras to take a pic). Back in the day, many a South Australian went to Studio 2000 for a fancy photo shoot, with a bit of mood lighting, maybe a little bit of risqué clothing. Studio 2000 went bust in 2013, but photographer Craig James revealed he has thousands of negatives in a shed and was looking for original subjects.
COOL IT: It wasn’t exactly a cause for celebration. And, even if you were so inclined, the ice cubes in the drinks wouldn’t last too long anyway. Turns out July, 2019 was the warmest month in recorded history. Extreme heat hit the United States and Europe. France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands ‘enjoyed’ record temperatures. Africa recorded its hottest month on record. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said global temperature for the month was 0.95C above the average. Still, in one way, it’s not that surprising. It was the 415th consecutive month with a temperature above the 20th century average.
DOLLAR DAZE: Avengers: Endgame (one of an apparently never-ending stream of Marvel comic book movies) became the highest-grossing film of all time. Released in April, by July it had raked in $US2.9 billion (that 4.2 billion in Aussie dollars), which took it past the previous record holder, the 2009 release Avatar directed by James Cameron. Not that everybody was a fan. The legendary director Martin Scorsese certainly wasn’t impressed. “I don’t see them. I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema.’’
AUGUST
CAUGHT OUT: That a government would consider such a nuclear option illustrates just how severe the problem had become and just how badly the state’s fisheries had been managed over many years. But the state government announced it would introduce a three-year ban on catching snapper in most SA waters. Predictably, it was a controversial move. Coastal communities and businesses that rely on summer fishing tourism were justifiably worried. There were early predictions of economic decline and business closures, but Fisheries Minister Tim Whetstone gave a blunt assessment. “The science shows drastic action is required to protect snapper stocks and for the future of this fishery.’’
BACK IN TIME: Australia’s bad boys of cricket – Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft – made their return to the Test arena after being banned for ball tampering. That it was an Ashes series in England only added to the tension. The English press and crowd were lying in wait. Warner and Bancroft wilted but Smith played a series for the ages. So much so, that by the end of the series, it was generally agreed he was Australia’s best batsman since Bradman. It often felt like Smith was taking on the poms by himself. He missed one Test but still racked up 774 runs at an average of 110.57. Without him Australia would not have retained the little urn.
NOT JUST: It’s been a spectacular year for Adelaide supermodel Adut Akech. Adut, who came to Australia as a child refugee from Africa, was ranked as the world’s number one model by industry website models.com. Adut also generated a debate on racism in Australia after criticising Who magazine who published a photo of another black model, Flavia Lazarus, and said it was her. “It goes to show that people are very ignorant and narrow-minded that they think every black girl or African people looks the same,’’ she wrote. “I feel as though this would’ve not happened to a white model.’’
SEPTEMBER
CROW FLIES: As the story of the 2019 AFL season unspooled, it became increasingly clear Adelaide was in deep trouble. The team looked slow, unmotivated and in need of a deep clean out. It was the bottom of a slide that started after its thumping in the 2017 grand final. Coach Don Pyke left with two years left on his contract, more controversially fan favourite Eddie Betts departed. Irate Crows’ fans wondered if change was also needed in the boardroom and chairman Rob Chapman promised to go next year. Board member Mark Riccuito stoked the fire by encouraging fans to support another team if they weren’t happy.
CHANGED CLIMATE: Around 10,000 people marched through the streets of Adelaide as part of the Global Strike 4 Climate. Many were students who took the day off school to protest, inspired by 16 year-old Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg. It was estimated 300,000 people took to the streets around Australia to demand action in climate change. It was estimated that as many as 6 million around the world took part in the day which was held before a UN conference where Thunberg accused governments of “betrayal’’. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,’’ she said.
STAR TREK: Of course, if Greta Thunberg is correct, earth may need a plan b. The good news is scientists, for the first time, have discovered a planet in the “habitable zone’’ around a star that has water in its atmosphere. Going under the moniker K2-18b, it’s just over twice the size of planet earth. The bad news is that it’s not entirely close if humanity needs a quick escape. It’s about 111 light years, or around, 1,000,000,000,000,000km away, orbiting the red dwarf (not the TV show) K2-18. It’s not known whether it can support life as yet, but that may be known within a decade as telescopes improve.
OCTOBER
STONE’S THROW: No matter the ultimate justification, it was one of the more horrifying images of the year when a video surfaced of a man seemingly taking great delight in hurling rocks at a wombat. It would be revealed the man in question was Waylon Johncock, an off-duty indigenous police officer and the incident had taken place on the state’s far west coast. At the time police commissioner Grant Stevens described the act as “totally abhorrent’’. However, a police investigation found Johncock, a “traditional Aboriginal man’’ had an appropriate permit to hunt wombats and that the animal was eaten. Johncock was counselled
but remained in the police force.
CLIMB DOWN: Uluru was climbed for the last time on October 25. It was a victory for the rock’s traditional Anangu owners who had long wanted to ban people from climbing it for cultural reasons and safety reasons. The closure also prompted many to travel to Uluru in those last days to climb the rock before it was closed off. That they did so in the certain knowledge that Uluru’s traditional owners didn’t want them there, clambering all over their sacred site was bewildering to many, given that is displayed such an obvious disrespect.
NO LOSS: There’s no doubt the world became a better place with the death of Islamic terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The leader of ISIS was responsible for the brutal, needless death of far too many innocent people and convinced far too many like-minded types to join in with his stoneage view of the world in a religious war. He was tracked down to a village northwest Syria by US forces. When the soldiers blasted their way into his house, al-Baghdadi fled into a network of underground tunnels before exploding a suicide vest, killing himself and two of his children.
NOVEMBER
NEVERENDING STORY: There are some who believe that nothing ever really happens in Adelaide. Well, at least not quickly. And not without a long, tedious fight. There are many examples, but just to plump for the most obvious – the Le Cornu redevelopment in O’Connell St, 30 years and counting. There are now genuine fears that the $600 million redevelopment of the Festival Plaza could become another such saga. The project was announced in 2012 by ex-premier Jay Weatherill but the ultimate design is still a mystery and there seems to be an impasse between billionaire developer Lang Walker and the current state government. Maybe 2020?
FIRE UP: The Country Fire Service has been warning for a while of increasingly early starts to the fire season as climate change kicks in. Frightening fires destroyed property and threatened worse in Port Lincoln and on the Yorke Peninsula near Edithburgh and Yorketown in November. It left the state nervous ahead of another long, hot summer. Further afield, there were unprecedented fires in NSW and Queensland which stretched into December. More than 1000 homes have been devastated and six people have died as heavy smoke from the fires settled on Sydney and Canberra.
GIANT IMPEACH: The rolling carnival that is Donald Trump’s presidency took on a more serious tone as the House of Representatives held hearings to impeach him. The hearings were seeking evidence on Trump’s efforts to persuade Ukraine to dig dirt on his political rival Joe Biden by withholding military aid. Most of the case is based on a Trump phone call to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky where the US president said: “I would like you to do us a favour, though.’’ He made the request just after Zelensky had asked about buying military hardware.
DECEMBER
BREAKDOWN: Perhaps, the end wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it was still sad all the same. After General Motors stopped manufacturing Holden cars at Elizabeth in 2017, the writing was always on the wall for its iconic Commodore. The Commodore for a long time was the most popular car in the country, but sales had crashed from 95,000 in 1998 to 5471 this year, by which time it was a Commodore in name only. The Australian version being replaced by a smaller, less powerful car made by Germany’s Opel. It didn’t even have a V8 version. For shame.
KIWI TRAGEDY: It was supposed to be a fun adventure. A day out on an pristine island that was also a volcano. But when the Mt White volcano, off the east coast of New Zealand’s north island, erupted, the tourists were trapped with terrible consequences. More than a dozen people were killed, with many Australians among the final toll. Among the dead were Adelaide lawyer Gavin Dallow and his stepdaughter, 15-year-old Zoe Hosking. Lisa Dallow, Gavin’s wife and Zoe’s mother, survived and was airlifted to Melbourne in a critical condition.
BORIS PREVAILS: It was probably the most divisive British election campaign in history. On the one side there was incumbent prime minister, the right wing establishment figure Boris Johnson, up against the old-style, hard left Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Johnson was promising Brexit, Corbyn was promising to renationalise private industry. For the people of Britain it was a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. In the end, Johnson prevailed comfortably, paving the way for Britain to leave the European Union. The question now is whether Johnson has the capacity to manage what is Britain’s biggest challenge in more than 50 years.
HILLS HEARTBREAK: Following earlier dangerous fires at Port Lincoln and on the Yorke Peninsula, a run of four 40C+ days in December culminatedwith a catastrophic fire in the Adelaide Hills. The Cudlee Creek fire burned through more than 25,000ha of land and destroyedmore than 80 homes, a further 500-plus outbuildings and almost 300 vehicles. Grandfather Ron Selth was killed trying to defendhis Charleston property.