Welcome to Crikey‘s 2022 end-of-year awards, the most glorious and prestigious in Australia — probably the world.
The first and by far the most coveted is Crikey‘s Arsehat of the Year, the gong that goes to the person who did the best work in being the worst.
Read the 2022 Arsehat of the Year nominees below, and then cast your vote here!
Vladimir Putin
After years of convincing the Russian people they are the victims of a humiliating series of wrongs that must be put right, years of menacing the country’s neighbours, years of making sure his critics end up in jail or dead, Putin launched his deadly (and seemingly doomed) invasion of Ukraine. He has isolated his country, violated international law and caused thousands of Ukrainian and Russian deaths.
Elon Musk
Musk must be one of the few people in history who could cut such a pitiful figure the same year he became the richest person on earth (a title he’s now lost). His $44 billion purchase of Twitter — which he was forced into after attempting to pull out and facing a legal struggle — didn’t go great.
“Comedy is legal again,” he announced upon the purchase, and then suspended accounts that made jokes about him. He fired thousands of employees. Advertising drained from the site like a bath. Use of slurs spiked while he cosied up to far-right figures. Summing it all up towards the end of the year, he got on stage with Dave Chappelle, a comic whose audience more than any other would be primed towards Musk’s meme-laden edge-lord schtick, and he could barely get a word out for the booing.
Scott Morrison
We hate to kick a guy when he’s down, but if this list is to mean anything, Morrison simply has to be on it again. Leading the Coalition to crushing defeat and squishing that young lad was bad enough. But then via his need for control, secrecy and desire for an uncomplicated hagiography, he brought about a fresh, gleaming, gigantic scandal.
It was revealed after the election that he had hoarded the job titles of five of his ministerial colleagues. He finished the year as the first former PM to be censured, and gave us another display of virtuoso shrugging evasion during his grilling at the royal commission into robodebt, one of the many policy disasters he managed to be at the heart of.
Linda Reynolds
Reynolds had a bad enough 2021, horrifically mishandling the alleged rape of her staffer Brittany Higgins — calling her a “lying cow” was just the grotesque peak of it. This year just got worse: she was accused of “leaking privileged information to the paper” by Higgins’ partner, and was subject to complaints from the ACT’s most senior prosecutor for her “disturbing” conduct during the trial, including texting the accused’s defence.
When Reynolds was asked why she did that, the former defence minister told the court she hadn’t been through a trial before and, mind-bogglingly, figured it was fine.
Boris Johnson
Finally the set collapsed and Johnson, the man who built a career on his skills as an entertainer, exited the stage. Having won a landslide in 2019, within three years much of his backbench — and a good 50 of his ministers — forced him out after a truly dizzying number of scandals.
Chief among them was “partygate”, where the Tories partied and got off with each other while ordinary Britons were prohibited from seeing dying relatives. Then came the assault allegations levelled at the party’s deputy whip, and it was all over. The chaos didn’t stop there of course, and after 44 days of his replacement Liz Truss, the Tories had to go through it all again.
John Barilaro
It was a truly remarkable achievement from the former NSW Nationals leader and deputy premier. After years of burning through the oxygen available to his Coalition partner while in office, the Libs in NSW could have been forgiven for thinking once he left office he’d be less of a problem.
But with the scandal surrounding his post-politics appointment to a plum US trade commissioner role, despite the earlier appointment of a qualified and less-conflicted woman, he only went and produced his masterpiece from beyond the political grave, possibly cruelling the Perrotett government’s chance of reelection next year.
Who do you think deserves the coveted Arsehat of The Year? Vote here!
I would have included GG Hurley for arsehat of the year. For manageing to not even do the one job he should have, which is to act inthe best interests of the People of Australia. I guess his busy job as an influencer meant he didn’t have time to think too much about Scott’s grab for power which he was enabling.
Mmmmm. I just wonder what church Hurley attends?
This is one year that each of the nominees so richly deserve the award. Can we have the first joint award?
2022 has produced an outstanding crop of Arsehats.
If only they could all be ploughed under – at least add to fertility.
Can we have a G) All of the Above?
Agreed. Given 2022 was such a unique year, it is all but impossible to attach one individual with a tag . . . So how about one ‘coterie’, all of whom identified above, collided, unified arm-in-arm turned their backs, dropped their dacks, collapsed, whilst mesmerised, and then despatched. And not one, but all, disappeared . . . . up each others clap / trap? Two thousand and twenty two – 2022. To be remembered: An end to crap!
A nom for Putin I think runs the risk of trivialising what he’s done.
I see you have swallowed the lies holus bolus. The US has lies to us about everything from Pearl harbor onwards, yay, well before that, the USS Belgrano etc etc
That still doesn’t justify invading a neighbouring country and specifically targeting civilians.
The US has invaded country after country after country: how many civilians do you think they have killed? Or do only blonde blue eyed Europeans count?
Both are appalling. Let’s criticise both equally for what they’ve done.
But we haven’t. We don’t.
There has been no targetting of civilians by Russia.
Unlike the Azov attacks on the eastern oblasts for more than a decade which were solely against civilians.
Complete rubbish.
Correct. Azov are real, slaughtering their own civilians for media effect. Putin had no choice. Open your eyes, people.
Dieter, we are not getting all our news of Putin’s attempted invasion of Ukraine, and all the death, destruction and misery he is creating for Ukrainians and Russians too, from the US. You need to search around for a few more conspiracy theories to cover all the global news services. ???
I get mine from US and British reporters in Donbas. I also get it from Brian Berletic, and Scott Ritter – both ex US Marines, John Mearsheimer, Grayzone, Redacted and other Western sources, none of them Russian propagandists. What boggles my mind is no matter what lies the US NATO and Ukraine tell, there are people in the West who believe them. have you heard of Maidan, the 2 broken Minsk Agreements, the post -2014 bombing of the Donbas?????The Conversation recently published an article by a Lowy Foundation funded ANU academic called Sussex about the Russian Missile Attacks on Poland, something even Biden and the Polish PM announced as lies on the same day of the attack. The first casualty of war is always Truth.
How about news from actual Ukrainians who had to flee their country and provided daily photos of the damage inflicted by Russian missiles on their local schools etc?
Or did they make that up too?
Of course the US lies, spreads propaganda and has interfered with the sovereignty of other countries. I doubt anyone on this thread denies that.
But Putin does it because he feels personally miffed about being left out of events because he is ‘important’, and it is therefore his right to kill his own soldiers as well as any foreign civilians who get in the way of his self-aggrandisement. He is clearly a psychopath like so many other world leaders.
Does that make him any less guilty of invading a neighbouring country and murdering people because he’s pissed off with NATO?
A bit of perspective on your part might help.
Having said that Schmorrison gets my vote for Arsehat because he epitomises the attitude of so many Coalition politicians who do their damage mainly for the money, and couldn’t give a hat full of sh*t for the people who voted for them.
You have swallowed all of the lies about this war. It did not begin in February this year and has nothing to do with Putin: it is a proxy war initiated by the US via NATO on Russia.
Correct. A US proxy war, in which they are happy to continue the sacrifice to the last Ukranian. Nuland said it all.. “fuck the EU”, and Germany self destructing in the process. Idiots. ‘.
Angela Merkel has recently said that there was never the intention to follow the Minsk Agreements.
Yes, and she also said it was drawn up to give Ukraine more time for NATO to arm it. Are you aware that Ukrainian/NATO forces were massing on the Donbas region earlier this year? No, because the lying Western Media doesn’t want you to know this.
There’s also a fascinating 72-second YOUTUBE clip where Lyndsey Graham and John McCain are addressing a roomful of AZOV Nazis assuring them that the US would arm and supply them in their coming war on Russia. He nominated 2017 as the year the war on Russia would commence. It’s easy to find it.
This is Arsehat of THE YEAR (ie. 2022). Not 1941.
You are misinformed. Read the Courier Mail, do we?
What on earth was the USS Belgrano “well before” Pearl Harbor?
There was an Argentinian ship, the ARA General Belgrano, sunk by the British in 1982, but the connection here is not clear…
Apologies: I meant the USS Maine, dunno where my brain cells went.!899, Cuba, a typical – Gulf of Tonkin, WMD etc etc – US False Flag
Correct Dieter. The 34 negative votes for your comment reflect the gobsmacking naevity of those on this forum who believe the US propaganda. EVERY US INVOLVED WAR OR INVASION since WW2 has been based on US lies. EVERY ONE. The worlds foremost terrorist nation. People, do some research for gawd’s sake. The war can be stopped in a flash by US and NATO withdrawal. The Russian memory of 26million dead from WW2 is very real. The US lost 175k in Europe by comparison, having allowed Russia to decimate the German onslaught and handle the bulk of the fighting and slaughter.