Year in review: Qweekend’s most confronting stories of 2022
As the year draws to its close, we revisit some of the most beautiful, shocking, harrowing and heartbreaking stories featured in QWeekend magazine in 2022 to see what happened next.
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‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” … so begins the famous opening lines of the Charles Dickens 1859 classic, A Tale of Two Cities, but it could equally apply to Queensland in 2022 – and Qweekend has been there to record it all.
From a change of hands to guide us through the pandemic, with Dr John Gerrard stepping into Dr Jeannette Young’s shoes as she stepped up the Italianate staircase of Government House, a change of government with Anthony Albanese packing his bags for The Lodge as Scott Morrison vacated it, to golden girl Ash Barty’s ascent through the tennis ranks and then retirement, and the war in Ukraine arriving on our doorstep as Queenslanders opened their arms to its refugees, Qweekend’s writers have recorded it all.
As the year draws to its close, we revisit some of those stories to see what happened next. Some have happy endings, one has the saddest of all, but every story we wrote mattered to someone, made a difference somewhere, and reminded us all of the humanity behind the headlines.
- By Frances Whiting
ASH BARTY
When I spoke to Ash Barty last December she was sitting quietly on the biggest sports story of the decade.
Women’s tennis world No 1 Barty was thinking of retiring at the end of the Australian Open a month later – and duly did after winning it in Melbourne.
She kept her secret well hidden. There was not a word of speculation about it – anywhere – until it was announced in March this year.
In our interview we spoke about her missing home and how she took parts of home like her favourite coffee beans and jars of Vegemite with her on tour. But there was no hint in any answer in our chat that suggested she was finishing up.
Ash would make a great poker player.
It was all a matter of desire. After winning the 2021 Wimbledon title Barty had her heart’s desire and the competitive flame that is the power source of all elite athletes never burnt as brightly again. Occasionally she would quip, “I think I’m done” to her support staff but they urged her not to make a decision.
Amazingly, her acceptance that she was “done” liberated and relaxed her on court. She stormed to victory in the Australian Open – breaking a 44-year drought for Australian women in their home title.
Barty claims she has no regrets and has spent her life in retirement working on her just released book My Dream Time and a promotional book tour. She has no plans to return to the tennis circuit.
- By Robert Craddock
COVID WARRIORS
For the medical staff of the Gold Coast University Hospital, 2022 is ending in a similar way to how it started – battling a Covid wave.
But this time around, the patients are less sick and there are fewer of them – a result which the Emergency Department’s director, Dr David Green, attributes to more people being vaccinated.
Today, the staff and patients are benefiting from streamlined and flexible processes developed in the heat of the New Year wave.
“As soon as the NSW/Queensland border was open (in mid-December 2021), our Covid cases went from virtually nil to hundreds in a period of about two weeks,” says Green says. “So we had to be adaptive, and adaptive fast.”
At its peak, an average of 120 Covid patients were arriving at the ED every day, representing about 40 per cent of all ED presentations.
An undesirable knock-on effect of that influx was that some patients with other medical problems were delaying going to hospital.
“People were presenting late with serious illness that we would have liked to have seen a day or two earlier,” Green says.
In this wave, Green has the same advice as he did at the start of the year: get immunised, wash your hands and mask up when you can’t physically distance.
- By Leisa Scott
USMAN KHAWAJA
Usman Khawaja had convinced himself he was about to welcome a son when he appeared on the cover of Qweekend in February – except that was just a tactic to stir up his pregnant wife Rachel.
He actually loves being a girl dad. That was obvious by the way he doted on daughter Aisha, two, when we spent time at their new family home in Brisbane.
And he credited becoming a father, and the stability of his family life, for his underdog heroics in the recent summer of cricket. But his Ashes success had earned him a spot in Australia’s Pakistan tour in April and so he also knew he might miss the arrival of his second child.
Thankfully, fortune continued to favour them. He scored another two centuries for Australia in Pakistan and returned to Brisbane in time to share in the surprise of welcoming another baby girl, daughter Ayla, on April 28.
“When Ayla was born, (it) was pretty cute watching Aisha hold her, kiss her and pat her,” he says.
“Cricket being a very long game means you are away from home for extended periods of time. Much more than other sports. It can be hard being away for those periods as your children can grow up very fast.”
In a continued commitment to his family in Queensland, he signed a four-year deal in June to captain Brisbane Heat, as well as Queensland.
- By Amy Price
EMMA MCKEON
When Qweekend met swimmer Emma McKeon earlier this year, the superfish said the magnitude of her blistering performance at the Tokyo Olympics was still “sinking in”.
The then 27 year old had smashed most swimming records going; McKeon’s seven medal haul (four gold, three bronze) earned her the most medals won in any sport in Tokyo, she was the first woman to win two gold medals in one day, and she returned home from Japan with (if her previous four at the Rio Games are factored in) the most medals awarded in Olympic Games history.
It was an astonishing performance, and it seemed like she couldn’t possibly topple any more records. And then she did.
Fast forward to August and the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, and McKeon won a bronze, a silver and six – that’s six – golds, making her individual haul greater than that of 56 of the nations competing. Out of the pool, McKeon has also won the heart of fellow swimmer, Cody Simpson.
The couple became “insta official” in July this year with singer/songwriter/swimmer Simpson sharing a series of photos of him strolling hand-in-hand with McKeon in Spain, causing a media frenzy.
All in all, it’s been a big year for McKeon who, despite everything, has managed to keep her feet on the ground, and her eyes on the prize she told Qweekend about in March.
“From here on, it’s all about Paris (Olympics in 2024),” she said, and according to her coach Michael Bohl, it still is.
“Emma is not one to rest on her laurels,” he said. “She’s working very hard to make sure she gets there.”
- By Frances Whiting
AVA PEARCE
They called her their Princess Warrior, and with good reason.
Because six-year-old Ava Pearce was both. A fighter to her core, and a rainbow-hued Princess in the dress-up costumes she loved to wear at the family home she shared with mum Amanda, dad Damien and siblings Charles, Freya and Brenna.
When Qweekend met Ava, she had just returned home from school, clambering up on the couch to give her parents a kiss before running off to watch her favourite show, Bluey. Diagnosed with an ependymoma posterior fossa tumour wrapped around her brain stem in November 2018, Ava had fought long and hard to start her prep year with her peers, undergoing years of surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation and countless other treatments as her family and the many people who loved her tried every measure they could to halt the cancer’s progression.
But soon after Qweekend visited Ava, the tumour that had blighted her young life had once again begun to grow, and this time, Ava’s family was told she had run out of treatment options.
Ava Pearce, Princess Warrior, died at home on October 15 this year, watching her favourite movie, Encanto. She was surrounded by her family, and in her mother Amanda’s loving arms. “When we ran out of options, we brought her home, and we just loved her,” Amanda says. “The tumour took all her body movements first, then it stopped her respiratory system.
It was very traumatic, but when it was time to go, Ava did it on her terms, in her way. It was very Ava.
“And I think her legacy is love and the people she touched, at home, at school, on our street and in the community. Anyone who met her knew that Ava never needed to have a long life to make a big impact.”
The Pearce family have asked for any donations to be sent to Hummingbird House, the children’s hospice where Ava and her family spent a week together this year.
-By Frances Whiting
COURTNEY THORPE
When Courtney Thorpe decided to publicly share her personal struggles over the past five years with Qweekend, it felt like opening a Pandora’s box of self-criticism she knew she could never close again.
As we spoke with her in June, she discussed her battle with post-natal depression and anxiety since giving birth to daughter Kennedy, the breakdown of her seemingly fairytale marriage to Kennedy’s dad, NRL player Jarrod Wallace (who has since left the Gold Coast Titans and signed a deal with Redcliffe Dolphins), and her impostor syndrome as a single mum returning to a former life that had moved on without her.
And more importantly, the former Miss World Australia was concerned about fumbling through it all into a life in which she could finally be happy again.
But hearteningly she says it was that same candour she initially feared that has opened that pathway.
“I feel like I’ve picked up my life from five years’ ago but better … because for the first time in my work I feel like I can be authentic and that feels amazing,” she says.
She has been asked to host several events, particularly by female-run organisations, in the second half of 2022 and was a guest speaker at Future Females’ end of year showcase on the Gold Coast.
A new season of her podcast More Than Just a Mum is underway for 2023 with different types of pioneering women sharing honestly about their lives.
“I’m finding myself, my career is back on track and I’m loving life with Kennedy,” she says.
- By Amy Price
MIA HEATHCOTE
Just a week after Qweekend had, perhaps presciently, featured Mia Heathcote on the cover, predicting she had a glittering future, it turned out we were right.
In one of the Arts section’s special moments of 2022, those of us who were at the opening night of Queensland Ballet’s Manon, knew something special was happening when artistic director Li Cunxin came on to the stage at the end of the ballet while the standing ovation was still underway.
“I would like to share exciting news with you,” Li offered as a hush fell over the audience. “I am immensely proud to announce the promotions of Mia Heathcote and Patricio Revé to principal artists.
“I want to acknowledge and thank Mia and Patricio for the hard work, dedication, and perseverance they have demonstrated over the years.
Tonight, they displayed exceptional professionalism, artistry, and technicality as Manon and des Grieux.” Reve’s parents in Cuba were keeping tabs online but Heathcote’s proud parents were in the audience, both ballet royalty themselves.
Steven Heathcote is a ballet legend still working in the field as ballet master for The Australian Ballet and mum Kathy (nee Reid) was also a dancer with The Australian Ballet. Brother Sam was also there, all three jetting in for the special occasion.
Before the show, Li Cunxin told me that he had been watching Mia’s star rise with pleasure.
“When Mia auditioned at the age of 17, she possessed an incredible quality and musicality as a student,” Li confided.
“There is no doubt in my mind that she is one of the top artists in the country at the moment.”
- By Phil Brown
THE NADESALINGAM FAMILY
It’s been a big year for Australia’s most famous asylum seekers, the Nadesalingam family, who finally returned to the central Queensland rural town of Biloela in June after an epic four-year battle.
The family, who were removed from their home in the town in March 2018 in a 5am raid, made national headlines in their fight to be allowed to live back in “Bilo’’.
They were held in immigration or community detention in Melbourne, Christmas Island and Perth and, on two occasions, were put on planes to be deported, only to be saved by last-minute legal injunctions.
A grassroots campaign, Home to Bilo, led by Biloela social worker Angela Fredericks, advocated tirelessly for the return of the Sri Lankan Tamil family – Priya, Nades and their Australian-born daughters Kopika, 7, and Tharnicaa, 5.
The support group has now turned its attention to advocating for the 31,000 people living in uncertainty in Australia under temporary visas and for a change to immigration laws to allow cases to be heard in a “fair and just manner’’.
The group has held an online rally on the issue and is co-ordinating refugee delegations to visit politicians in Canberra.
Priya plans to move into an advocacy role and has also signed a book deal to write a memoir. In late October, the Home to Bilo group was named as a community award finalist in the Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2022 Human Rights Awards.
- By Elissa Lawrence
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