Nominations open for The Australian’s Australian of the Year

The Australian is once again asking our readers to nominate the most outstanding Australians of the year: those who have inspired, led by example, helped the vulnerable, and shone in their chosen fields. Who should be named this masthead’s Australian of the Year for 2024?

NSW Police Inspector Amy Scott receives the Commissioner’s Valour Award from NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb. Picture: Mick Tsikas

In a year of war, conflict, and political upheaval on the global stage, some extraordinary Australians have inspired, led by example, helped the vulnerable, and shone in their chosen fields.

Continuing an annual tradition that began in 1971, The Australian is again asking our readers to nominate the most outstanding individuals or groups of the year.

From those nominees, on January 25 the masthead will announce its Australian of the Year, the latest in a glittering list that has honoured prime ministers such as Gough Whitlam (1972), sporting icons like Melbourne Cup-winning jockey Michelle Payne (2015), lifesaving clinicians including heart surgeon Victor Chang (1984) and nation-transforming activists in the tradition of Aboriginal land rights campaigner Eddie Mabo (1992).

Economist HC “Nugget” Coombs was the inaugural winner in the early 1970s, and the masthead’s 2023 Australian of the Year was journalist Cheng Lei, who was released from a ­Chinese jail after three years of unjust imprisonment with her grace and integrity intact.

As we invite readers’ suggestions, don’t feel limited to just captains of business and industry, the powerful and prestigious, or the famous and flashy. Our Australian of the Year needs to have ­bettered the lives of their fellow Australians or made the country a better place.

So where to begin?

Police Inspector Amy Scott attends a community candlelight vigil for the victims of the Bondi Junction stabbing attack at Bondi Beach on April 21. Picture: Getty Images

How about an act of remarkable courage? In April, Sydney police officer Amy Scott ran towards danger and ended the Bondi stabbing massacre when she fatally shot the knifeman who had already killed six people.

This year, Australia’s Jewish community endured a frightening surge in anti-Semitism, in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 46,000 people. The firebombing of Melbourne’s Adass Israel synagogue, and attacks on cars and homes in Sydney’s Jewish, community sparked fear but also leadership, with NSW Premier Chris Minns and Sydney’s Great Synagogue chief minister Rabbi Benjamin Elton among those Australians fighting to stop anti-Semitism.

Defiant Jewish singer-songwriter Deborah Conway kept speaking out to support Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorism, and Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns said “hate will not win” after his own office was vandalised with anti-Zionist graffiti.

In politics, LNP leader David Crisafulli and the CLP’s Lia Finocchiaro ended nearly a decade in power for Labor at seismic elections in Queensland and the Northern Territory respectively.

Kaylee McKeown celebrates after winning gold in the 200m backstroke in Paris. Picture: AFP

Para-swimmer Alexa Leary celebrates after winning gold in the Women's 100m Freestyle S9 in the Paris Paralympic Games. Picture: Getty Images

On the sporting field, Australian athletes excelled at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris in July and August. Queensland backstroker Kaylee McKeown successfully defended her 100m and 200m Olympic titles, while superstar padding sisters Jess and Noemie Fox became the first Australian siblings to win individual Olympic golds.

Pole vaulter Nina Kennedy soared to new heights and won gold in Paris, before bravely blowing the whistle this month on the harassment she suffered at the hands of coach Alex Parnov.

Para-swimmer Alexa Leary’s thrilling performance in the Paralympics pool – winning two golds and a silver – was pure joy.

The Penrith Panthers rampaged to their fourth-straight NRL premiership, and Sunshine Coast-based trainers John Symons and Sheila Laxon’s racehorse Knight’s Choice overcame long odds to win the Melbourne Cup, more than two decades after Laxon first won with Ethereal.

In the arts, Charlotte Wood’s introspective and spare novel Stone Yard Devotional was short-listed for the Booker Prize, while Waanyi writer Alexis Wright won both the Miles Franklin and the Stella Prize for Praiseworthy.