Well, Happy New Year, and let’s hope 2022 is a better year for all of us than 2021. It will be a year that presents huge challenges, and whether we successfully meet those challenges or not is going to depend on wise statecraft and responsible behaviour by everyone, not just politicians.

There are at least four major challenges the world will have to face this year over and above COVID-19. The one thing we do know about COVID-19 is that the policy of zero COVID-19 that was pursued at huge social and economic cost by various governments in and beyond Australia has had to be abandoned, and we now all know we have to learn to live with COVID-19. I’ve had it myself and, yes, I survived.