Christmas has come and gone, and I hope you’re sitting comfortably in your favourite chair relaxing and enjoying your newspaper.  Let me congratulate you in a moment for doing that.

 As I review what happened in 2024, it is hard as someone in the thick of politics not to look past the US elections.  In July President Trump survived an assassination attempt and then President Biden performed so badly in an election debate, the Democrat Party removed him for Kamala Harris. Harris who went on to lose the presidential election to Mr Trump, the first US president elected to a non-consecutive second term since 1892, while the Republicans also swept both Houses of Congress.  The significance for Australia is beginning to be felt as President-elect Trump pushes for heavy tariffs against China, in turn crunching demand for Australian resources. 

Four billion people in eighty countries had their elections this year, which saw 80 per cent of governments fall, in some cases in historic fashion.

Closer to home, 2024 February bushfires at Pomonal and Dadswells Bridge shocked us late into the summer into remembering nature’s fury.

The Syrian government fell, the war in Gaza continued (and spilled into Lebanon) - and His Majesty King Charles the Second visited Australia.  I was so thrilled to represent you, the people of Mallee, in Canberra for the civic reception for Their Majesties the King and Queen Camilla, and to speak briefly with His Majesty, a moment I will never forget. 

Prime Minister Albanese bought a clifftop home at Copacabana – during a cost-of-living crisis and Queensland got a new LNP government.

The Oxford Press declared ‘brainrot’ their Word of the Year for 2024, defining it as “deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”  TikTok, I’m looking at you.

So good for you, for reading your newspaper and digesting more wholesome content demanding more than 15 seconds’ attention: healthy food for your brain instead of social media fairy floss.

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