Readers invited to propose candidates for Australian of the Year
We invite readers to propose candidates for The Australian’s Australian of the Year – the people who inspired, led, served and excelled in 2022.
It was the year we elected a new prime minister and lost a beloved Queen, when cities and towns were beset by floods and heartache while farmers could hardly believe their luck as the rain tumbled down.
We celebrated our sporting heroes – Ash Barty backing up her 2021 triumph at Wimbledon at the Australian Open, the Socceroos’ never-say-die feat to reach the final 16 of the World Cup, David Warner’s Test heroics in the heat of Boxing Day at the MCG – and marvelled at how Australians punched above their weight in the arts, science, business and academe internationally.
Covid-19 stayed with us, of course, a reminder of the debt the nation owes to the health workers and medical researchers who saved so many from the virus. Not all, sadly, as the cumulative death toll approached 17,000.
There’s much to reflect on as we invite our readers to propose candidates for The Australian’s Australian of the Year – the people who inspired, led, served and excelled in 2022.
They don’t have to be famous, glamorous or occupy a seat of power. But they need to have made Australia a better place or bettered the lives of their fellow Australians.
Our Australian of the Year can come from any walk of life: it’s your choice. Opening today, nominations can be posted or emailed in through January.
But here’s some food for thought:
In politics, Anthony Albanese had the time of his life. At the May 21 election, he became only the fourth postwar Labor leader to take the party from opposition to power in Canberra.
While it’s early days yet, he has impressed on the international stage and been mostly steady at home. But stern tests loom as the government fights to tame inflation and confront a challenging world, destabilised by war in Europe and regional tensions with China.
Honourable mentions to Foreign Minister Penny Wong for delivering an overdue thaw in relations with Beijing and Treasurer Jim Chalmers, a gifted communicator who will bring down his second budget in seven months next May. The Prime Minister needs them both to stay sharp.
A defining issue of 2023 will be the referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament.
Labor is heavily invested in winning this vote. On the “yes” side are leading lights of the nation’s Aboriginal leadership including Noel Pearson, Pat Anderson and Megan Davis – architects of the touchstone Uluru Statement from the Heart – as well as Tom Calma and Marcia Langton who led the co-design process for the voice.
The “no” case is being prosecuted by another talented Indigenous woman, Coalition senator for the Northern Territory Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. While new to federal parliament, she has made an impact with her principled and articulate criticism of the voice.
Where to start with sport? Unsung Socceroos mentor Graham Arnold, named coach of the World Cup by French football bible L’Equipe, got the side through a trying qualification showdown with South American favourites Peru to reach the World Cup finals, then made it into the knockout stage of the tournament after being thrashed by France in the opening match.
Before retiring from professional tennis, Barty notched up her third grand slam title at the 2022 Australian Open. What price Nick Kyrgios for the silverware in 2023?
Following on from her Tokyo Olympics’ success, swimmer Emma McKeon became the most decorated athlete in Commonwealth Games history in Birmingham where she added six gold, one silver and one bronze medal to move her overall tally to 14 gold, one silver and five bronze medals.
After becoming Australian men’s cricket’s first full-time skipper who was also a frontline bowler since Richie Benaud, Pat Cummins led the team to a 4-0 Ashes win and a historic 1-0 series victory over Pakistan in the first tour of the troubled nation since 1998.
Warner’s stunning 200 in the Boxing Day Test this week bagged the three-match series against South Africa and delivered a measure of belated redemption from the humiliation of “sandpapergate” in Cape Town in 2018.
Never have Australians needed the emergency services more than this year as the east coast went under.
Five people died in Lismore, northern NSW, when the Wilsons River erupted in February. But the toll would have been unimaginably worse had a flotilla of small boats not taken to the floodwaters, rescuing dozens.
Among these everyday heroes was Aidan Ricketts who saved 16 people and five dogs in his 4.5m boat, even though his own home had flooded.
The dangers faced by police were rammed home when constables Rachel McCrow, 29, and Matthew Arnold, 28, were killed in a shootout at Wieambilla on Queensland’s Western Downs on December 12 alongside good Samaritan neighbour, Alan Dare, 58.
Another who paid the ultimate price was SES volunteer Merryl Dray, 62, killed while responding to a call-out in Coolana, northwest of Brisbane, on February 25.
Yet in a silver lining to the La Nina-fed deluge, farmers largely had a bumper year as the land bloomed. If the economy turns down in 2023, Australia will need all they can produce.
In the arts, the diversity and verve of contemporary Australia came to the fore.
Arnhem Land hip hop singer Baker Boy cleaned up at the ARIAs, taking home five awards, while multi-talented Leah Purcell completed her reinvention of Henry Lawson’s classic short story, The Drover’s Wife, by starring in a feature film to follow the acclaimed stage play and novel she also penned.
DNA scientist Kirsty Wright risked her career and reputation to help a team led by The Australian’s Hedley Thomas expose glaring deficiencies in the Queensland government’s main forensic lab as part of his award-winning podcast series, Shandee’s Story, into the unsolved murder of Mackay woman Shandee Blackburn in 2013.
Dr Wright’s commitment to the truth was this month vindicated in a scathing report by former Supreme Court judge Walter Sofronoff which laid bare a litany of failures at the lab, potentially affecting thousands of criminal cases.
In addition to mourning the Queen – Elizabeth the Great as she was dubbed by Boris Johnson, after her death at age 96 on September 8 – Australians were moved deeply by the passing of Shane Warne and Olivia Newton-John, revered figures who made important contributions to this country’s national life.
We encourage our readers to put in a nomination for The Australian’s Australian of the Year, which was first won in 1971 by economist HC “Nugget” Coombs. Prominent Australians can be nominated by filling out the form above, or sending an email to aaoty@theaustralian.com.au. Nominations close on Friday, January 20.
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