This was published 3 years ago
During a horror year, ordinary Australians were extraordinary
Bushfires and coronavirus, protests and lockdowns: as 2020 unfolded, the seemingly unremarkable among us have been the most remarkable, pulling us through it all with hard graft, decency and good humour.
Just the beginning: the year’s first horror, the summer bushfires, brought out the best in many Australians.Credit: Nick Moir
In 1666, the people of London endured a plague (starting in 1665) that killed 20 per cent of the population, and a fire that destroyed almost 90 per cent of homes within the city walls. These disasters – far greater than ours in proportional terms – came in reverse order to those of 2020, but otherwise a great deal seems exactly the same, despite the passage of three centuries. There were bumbling politicians and unsung heroes; crackpot schemes and serious science; public outrage and communal fortitude. And above all, there were people – ordinary people – rescuing their cats and worrying about their neighbours and unable to believe what the hell was happening to their lives.
I’ve thought a lot about 1666 in 2020. In drastic times, especially when they seem to last forever (mid-year, I remember thinking, “How can it be only July?”), it can be comforting to remember that, though fashion choices have changed for fleeing one’s home, waiting for dinner delivery or home schooling the kids (Linen smocks, anyone? Buckled shoes? Periwigs?) – others have been here before us.
In 2020, the fires came first. The Australian sky has always been one of the things I’ve loved most about this country – that eye-watering bowl of blue – and suddenly it was gone, replaced by a grey pall that didn’t lift for weeks. I remember pieces of ash, some still in the perfect shape of gum leaves, dropping into our courtyard. That was as close as the fires came to us city slickers, but it felt like we were watching the fragments of life itself – homes, gardens, forests, native animals – fall at our feet.
And yet, in the midst of the horror were ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Such as the family who took 27 sooty and exhausted evacuees aged from seven to 70, including my friend and her family, into their immaculate NSW South Coast home at New Year’s and gave them (and two rabbits and four dogs) showers and food and somewhere to sleep.
Or my neighbour, who invited my daughter next door to help a lady from Moruya make protein balls for bush animals starving in their annihilated habitats. Or another friend, who held a sewing bee at which we made what seemed like several million pouches for orphaned bats and joeys. I couldn’t tell if these things actually helped the animals (Could a wallaby eat nut butter? Could a joey sleep in a flannel bag?) or only ourselves. But surely it was better to stand up, even as our fearless leaders – here’s looking at you, Scott Morrison in Hawaii – let us down. Mind you, wasn’t it a lovely moment of national unity when that volunteer firefighter told our PM to “go and get f…ed”? Celeste Barber and her $51 million were fantastic, but that man in his fire truck was the most memorable tweet I saw all year.
Thousand gathered in front of Sydney Town Hall in January to raise money for firies and call for action on climate change.Credit: Rhett Wyman
You might think such end-of-days drama would have galvanised unanimous high-level support – finally – about climate change. No such luck. But again, ordinary people rose to that challenge this year. Australian school kids and suburban families and well-coiffed grandmothers gathered in unprecedented numbers to fight for better action on global warming.
In our house, my eight-year-old’s first act of political activism occurred: she and I took a ferry ride and a harbourside walk to a protest, and she spent an idyllic hour eating muesli bars and watching people shout through megaphones while policemen complimented her on her hand-made sign. I’m sure this experience will set her up well for her future as an urban terrorist, fighting for her planet as it chokes under the death grip of Big Coal, Big Oil and small politicians.
It’s been a good year for collective outrage. Despite unprecedented risks, people stood up for Black Lives Matter on the streets, and for sexism and cultural heritage in shareholder meetings. We didn’t just care about Melissa Leong and Hamilton getting onstage in Australia, we cared about Juukan Gorge, too, and about sleazy bosses making unwanted advances on their subordinates. After decades of institutional apathy on such matters, this year, some boardrooms at least were forced to take action.
Our nation’s public health workers took on the challenges they faced with gusto.Credit: Kate Geraghty
Natural disaster; social upheaval … what next but global plague? “Novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2” seemed hard to take seriously at first. I remember telling a friend airily in February that he should certainly go overseas, because this whole virus thing wouldn’t be nearly as bad as people imagined and he’d be fine. Then, suddenly, it was so much worse than people imagined and nobody was fine.
Remember the reports of people being refused treatment and dying alone in Bergamot, in northern Italy? Remember the refrigerated trucks storing the bodies in New York, and that city’s mass graves on Hart Island, the coffins stacked on top of each other in long open trenches? It felt like only a matter of time before we, too, would be swamped.
But then we weren’t. There were some tragic deaths, especially in aged care, and some terrible mistakes, like the Ruby Princess in Sydney and, later, the quarantine breaches in Melbourne. But in what still seems like a miracle, especially when you look overseas, our politicians actually implemented the public health advice that saved us. It seems a low bar to set as the mark of a good leader, doesn’t it: that they follow the science, heed the experts, believe in the facts? But as 2020 taught us, such qualities are rare among current world leaders, and therefore valuable.
And thus ScoMo made up some ground in the popularity stakes, closing the borders early and showing a burst of initiative with the stimulus bill. The premiers, meanwhile, went from bit-players in the nation’s daily political drama to firmly centre stage: Doughty Dan with his ubiquitous North Face jacket and his ring of steel, and Gullible Gladys, surviving the political firestorm over her useless ex, thanks to the fact that she’s been working like a dog on behalf of the public weal for the past nine months, and the public, it turns out, is grateful.
Speaking of the public weal, I think I feel about the researchers, public health officials and virus trackers of 2020 the way the English felt about the Battle of Britain pilots of 1940: never has so much been owed by so many to so few. Long live the science nerds who did what ordinary, non-famous, non-egomaniacal people do in times of crisis: stay calm, think carefully, act firmly. I found almost everything everyone in public health did intensely reassuring. Even when I couldn’t understand what the hell was going on (How many people? When do I wear a mask? Why can I go to the hairdressers?), I felt secure in their intelligence, their abilities, their priorities. What a blessing.
Black Lives Matter marchers defied pandemic risks to protest racism.Credit: Cole Bennetts
The other blessing was all of you – all of us. Ordinary Australians, once again. In the past nine months, despite many justifiable fears for the economy and the future and each other, most Australians have overwhelmingly rejected any suggestion that the science of the pandemic is fake, or there is conspiracy afoot, or that things such as guaranteed healthcare and financial support in a crisis don’t matter.
It only takes a quick look abroad – to the US, the UK, mainland Europe – to realise how unusual this is: how easy it’s been for complacency, political expediency or sheer madness to take control of governments and populations, with total disaster the result. After all, in the US earlier this month, 74 million people voted to reject science and truth and basic human decency in favour of a narcissist’s fantasy, an event so paralysing that it takes a real effort of will to remember that 80 million Americans actually voted Donald Trump out. (They have yet to ensure that he goes.)
Yet here we were in Australia, doing something different. Only months after the firies and their superhuman efforts, we had (mostly) clear strategies and good advice and consistent messaging from all sides of politics. We had the scientific community straining every nerve on our behalf for knowledge, treatments, vaccines. And we had hospital workers who kept us alive; teachers and bus drivers and supermarket staff and baristas who kept us educated and connected and fed and (crucially) caffeinated; posties and tradesmen who kept our online purchases arriving and the lights on; IT departments that fielded furious calls about Zoom failures; bosses trying to give their staff a break; staff trying to do their jobs from kitchen benches and coffee tables; parents doing that and teaching their kids; artists and writers and musicians and film-makers and even the odd worthless celebrity creating stuff online that made us feel better.
Everyone out of their comfort zone, everyone wondering what on earth would happen next, everyone (save the odd idiot lady at Bunnings or the manic loo-roll stockpiler at Coles) trying to do the right thing, trying not to make it worse for anyone else. Like the young policeman who arrived at an ill-advised outdoor curry night among neighbours in our suburb (ahem), and instead of issuing on-the-spot fines to everyone, instead said calmly: “I hate to be a party pooper, but it’s time to wrap this thing up.” Right you are, officer. And thanks.
This has been a year for gratitude. For small things – Roy and HG and their discussions of “rugba league”; a new episode of Bluey on a very bad day – and very large things: 111 days of unrelieved sacrifice by Melburnians in the second lockdown. It’s worth noting that in early August, when Victoria was recording hundreds of new COVID cases a day (725 on August 5), the UK had almost identical numbers (758 on August 8). And now, in mid-November, Victoria has zero new cases a day, and the UK, which spent those intervening months mostly refusing to go into lockdown, has almost 25,000. There, but for the grace of the Melburnians, go us all.
All of which is to say, thank god I’m an Australian. I’ve felt proud of us this year – proud enough that I’ve scoured the international news, looking for mention of our glorious triumphs. I’ve hardly ever found it – few nations in the throes of disaster are interested in marvelling at the success of others – but it doesn’t matter. We know we’ve done well. We know our national character has been put to the test, and – though far from perfect – has come up trumps.
Who knows what national character is, of course – or if it even exists at all. But I’m more inclined now than I was a year ago to think it does. And if so, I think ours must include a basic belief that we owe our fellow Australians something; a sense that in hard times, we’re willing to be in it together. Some might call this mateship; it might also be decency, combined with modesty. This year has shown us that we’re stubborn and brave, mean and stupid, heroic and kind. Ordinary people, in other words. And this year – not for the first time in history, or the last – we’ve seen what ordinary people can do.
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