A Decade of Disruption
The Australian presents A Decade of Disruption.
After a turbulent 10 years, Australians have emerged wealthier, with a more stable government, and firmly plugged into the global technology revolution. It’s a good foundation for facing the next decade when our region will watch China’s inexorable rise as democracy faces its biggest test in decades. The Weekend Australian assesses our place in the world as we enter the 2020s, while also documenting the history and fun of the 2010s. From woke words, to fashion, to phones, our writers cover how the times have changed.
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Capitalism isolated in connected world
by Adam Creighton
Malcolm Turnbull declared them “the most exciting times to be alive”. But for many it has been a decade of anxiety, despite an unexpected jobs boom and steady, albeit slower, improvement in living standards for most of us.
The marvel of having the world’s knowledge in our pocket — Britannica, after 246 years, disbanded its print encyclopaedia in 2012 — and the ability to interact with 2.4 billion people via Facebook haven’t assuaged concerns, however, that the economic system that powered the West to prosperity is breaking down | Read on
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Has feminism veered off track?
by Caroline Overington
I am woman. Wax my balls.
Oh, I’m sorry to start so horribly, but horrible is how so many women feel about 21st-century feminism. How did this movement that has achieved so much for women become so vicious, and absurd? | Read on
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The world is reeling from a Zucker punch
by David Swan
No one was prepared for just how damaging Facebook, and social media more broadly, would become.
The 2010s will likely be remembered most for the tech giants’ outsized influence on our lives and our collective inability to rein them in. Social media has disrupted democracy, dumbed down discourse and come at a cost to civil society that we can’t even yet fully understand. | Read on
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Evolution of smart-tech revolution
by Chris Griffith
Plasma TVs were still common in 2010, CDs were still relatively popular and work on the National Broadband Network had yet to begin. It’s only 10 years ago but it feels like a different world.
Back in 2010, 4G LTE wasn’t available in Australia and service-based cloud computing was in its infancy.
Some things haven’t changed. There was concern about user privacy online in the early 2010s, and it remains a significant concern today. | Read on
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How fashion turned political in the Age of Activewear
by Glynis Traill-Nash
Future generations looking back at the 2010s may identify any number of catwalk trends, but one overarching shift occurred in fashion: activewear. No longer simply the reserve of yoga and Pilates classes — but certainly helped along by the increasing popularity of both, along with the focus on health and “wellness” — Lycra-clad bodies became ubiquitous in our streets, our cafes, even our (most casual) workplaces. | Read on
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Tribal politics loses flavour
by Troy Bramston
A dismal decade in Australian politics is drawing to a close. In the 2010s, there have been five changes of prime minister. The party system continues to fracture. The polity is more polarised. Transformative policy change is harder to achieve and progress has been mixed. Political forces outside parliament have altered. And the pervasive influence of social media presents opportunities and risks for politicians.
The upshot is that fewer Australians identify with the major parties, we are disappointed with our leaders, citizens are more disengaged from politics, and trust in government and satisfaction with democracy continue to fall. | Read on
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Gripped by our climate of fear
by Matthew Denholm
Wherever you stand in the climate change debate, one thing is indisputable: it’s been one hell of a decade weatherwise.
The 2010s started with a big wet and have ended with a big dry, earlier-than-usual bushfires and record temperatures.
Did we imagine it or was this an exceptional decade and, if the latter, what factors were at play? | Read on
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Streaming wins hearts and minds
by Chris Boyd
Talk about taking out the trash. A few days before Y2K, the Howard government announced a digital television policy that effectively banned “datacasters” from the airwaves. “If it ends up on a PC,” communications minister Richard Alston said, “we don’t care. If it ends up on a TV screen, then it’s governed by this regime.” The policy didn’t just preserve the free-to-air monopoly, it extended it into new territories: high-definition broadcasting and digital multichannelling.
Without competition, the networks sat on their hands for a decade, blithely ignoring the strict HD broadcasting quotas that were an explicit quid pro quo. | Read on
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A look at the big pictures
By Stephen Romei
What were the best movies of the decade on which the credits will roll next week? Before I list my top 10, some caveats.
First, I haven’t seen every movie released since January 1, 2010. So if I don’t mention a film others think is a masterpiece, that’s because I haven’t seen it or I have seen it but don’t rate it as highly.
Second, what follows is my opinion and it may be different to the opinions of others. It may seem unnecessary to mention that but in this day of instant judgment via social media, I prefer to have it spelled out. David Fincher’s The Social Network (2000), by the way, does not make my list. | Read on
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Tied up in a Windsor knot
by Jacquelin Magnay
The Queen, in sunny yellow, beamed from the Buckingham Palace balcony welcoming granddaughter-in-law Kate Middleton to the family as the line of succession was strengthened.
It was 2011 and heaving crowds of adoring people lined the Mall and Green Park to get a glimpse of the happy bride and groom.
The step-perfect pageantry of this magical wedding of Prince William, second in line to the throne to his new bride and future queen underscored the royal family’s authority, and fawning interest around the world. | Read on
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Click go the fears
by Paul Maley
Two images typified the security challenges of the past decade.
The first was a small boy from the suburbs of Sydney standing in the Islamic State’s self-declared capital of Raqqa. Dressed in a blue polo shirt and baseball cap, he is holding the severed head of a Syrian official. Accompanying the photo is a caption written by the boy’s father, the notorious terrorist Khaled Sharrouf. “Thats my boy!’’ it reads.
The second, also of a child, was three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian refugee boy who died on the short but perilous boatlift to Europe, and whose tiny body was photographed lying on the shores of a Turkish beach. | Read on
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Obama and Trump: Two sides of the coin
by Cameron Stewart
It was dark, raw and defiant, and it signalled that US politics would never be the same again.
Donald Trump’s inauguration speech on January 20, 2017, shook the Washington establishment to its core. The newly sworn-in President portrayed the US as a broken, forlorn nation exploited by its allies and blighted by “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones” across the country. He spoke bleakly of “American carnage” and of a “forgotten generation of men and women”.
“From this day forward,” Trump declared, “it’s going to be only America first.” | Read on
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Billions at play for wealthy
by John Stensholt
It has been a great decade to be rich.
Household names such as Pratt, Rinehart, Lowy and Forrest have all added to their already considerable fortunes, and new magnates have emerged with fortunes built quicker than ever thanks to the internet and the rise of technology. | Read on
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Dank, dark decade for world of sport
by Simon McLoughlin
It started with “the biggest scandal in Australian sports history” and finished with another that threatens to erase Russia from the world’s arenas.
In between, the past decade has seen dopers, liars, fraudsters, brats and a tiny piece of sandpaper rub the sporting world raw. Somewhere between 2010 and the end of 2019, sport was robbed of innocence and integrity. Books were cooked, doping became optimised and corporatised, and some were even gleefully bought by teams that should’ve known better. | Read more
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Millennials make their mark
by Bernard Salt
The 2000s will be tagged forever as the decade bookended by terror and crisis, namely the 9/11 terror attack and the Wall Street-inspired global financial crisis. The 1990s, on the other hand, was the decade of recession and recovery. The 80s in Australia at least was the reform decade courtesy of the bold visioning of the Hawke-Keating government.
So, how will the 2010s be tagged? | Read on
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Growing up but not moving out
by Simon Kuestenmacher
With a new decade at our doorstep, it’s time to review the 10 years behind us. Population growth was the dominating demographic topic. We expanded our population base because our economy was hungry for skilled workers and our universities attracted international students. One in six international students ends up staying as a skilled migrant. Population growth and the changing nature of work are inextricably linked. | Read on
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On the road to Damascus: My trip through a ‘liberated’ Syria
The brutal Assad dictatorship is gone but is a new repressive Islamist regime being formed in Syria?
Trump remakes America with a revolution in common sense
Is Donald J. Trump a modern Moses leading his people into the promised land? Or is he the Apocalypse? It’s too early to tell, but the blizzard of activity in Trump’s first few days demonstrates he is reinventing America in his own likeness.