When we look back upon this decade, who are the Australians who will be forever etched into our memory? As Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Don Dunstan and Shane Gould were to the 1970s? As Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, Lindy Chamberlain and Paul Hogan were to the 80s?

The 2010s were a decade that began with Julian Assange and Wikileaks releasing a quarter of a million US diplomatic cables, Standard & Poor’s downgrading Greece’s sovereign credit rating to junk and China overtaking Japan as the world’s second largest economy. Here in Australia, Julia Gillard took out a sitting prime minister, and Cyclone Yasi took out the nation’s banana crop, driving inflation to 3.5 per cent.