Highlights from a weird and stupid year of politics

Former US president Donald Trump today announced he is releasing a series of collectable NFT cards for US$99 each. Impressively ugly, they depict him as, among other things, a superhero rippling with muscle and shooting lasers from his eyes.

Again, this is a former democratically elected head of a major world power. It was a perfect way to end what has been an exhaustingly weird and stupid year for politics here and around the world — so much so that this highlight reel doesn’t even get to the distinctly cooked Victorian state election. (If you want to delve into that smorgasbord, check in here, and here.)

Crazy for Albanese

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, of course, largely had a good year, leading the ALP back into government after nearly a decade in the wilderness. But it wasn’t all plain sailing — his inability to recall the unemployment and cash rates (and the meme-ready face he made accompanying that failure) dominated the first weeks of Labor’s election campaign.

All the more horrifying for any Labor politician, his stuff-up inadvertently paved the way for a slam-dunk for Greens Leader Adam Bandt, who responded to an attempt at a similar gotcha with “Google it, mate”, solidifying him as the only party leader who appeared to have any fun during the election.

Albanese soon consoled himself with a bizarre ongoing friendship with purveyor of early-2000s bangers Fatman Scoop, as well as a bike ride with Indonesian President Joko Widodo — the official video of which was shot and cut like the world’s least eventful action film.

Assorted Morrisonia

Meanwhile, former prime minister Scott Morrison was treating 2022 like a John Farnham-style farewell tour from public life. After Morrison led the Coalition to a crushing defeat in the May 22 election, we thought he’d fade into the background, only for subsequent scandals — one freshly revealed, the other a long time coming — to facilitate an encore performance of the hits we came to know so well during his time in office.

There was the evasion, the unreflective tetchiness at being questioned, the economy with the truth, and the uncanny ability to ruin his colleagues’ day. Then there was the evening he spent reply-guying every single Facebook joke made at his expense.

But if we are to pick one moment that defined his year, it’s probably when he tried to have a fun kickabout at a school in Tasmania during the election campaign and accidentally squished a kid.

Hurley Burley

The real gift to weird moments in public life that Morrison’s secret ministry scandal gave us was the insight into Governor-General David Hurley, and particularly his wife Linda who, it was revealed, sings.

And sings and sings and sings, at seemingly every public event she attends. It doesn’t matter if the subject required couplets like “Philanthropic and corporate partners are invited to join / folks, environmentalists, primary producers, help them win”, she got it done. It was, as one tipster put it, “the weirdest and greatest thing ever”.

BoM’s rebrand bombs

We in the bunker are still fairly sure this was a hoax: as part of Victoria, NSW and Tasmania struggled with severe flooding, and La Niña entered its third consecutive year, the Bureau of Meteorology issued a press release with some “crucial” information. Media organisations were now to refer to it by its full name in the first instance, and “the Bureau” thereafter. As we put it at the time: “This is ‘more crucial than ever’, the release said, given ‘an ever-increasing number of severe weather events’ — as though whoever wrote the opening sentence wasn’t allowed to read the rest of the release.”

The fact it paid a company called “C Word Communications” just over $69,000 (come on!) to do it is just more evidence that this is a joke it is waiting for the perfect time to reveal.

The Queen is dead, boys

Queen Elizabeth ll passed away and — much like Pizza Express, Primark and the other brands who mourned her — the Australian media responded with characteristic restraint.

The ABC sent a small army to the UK, news round-ups could find no more important story than the various stops along her late majesty’s coffin tour, and news.com.au reported on a cloud that reminded someone of the Queen.

Meanwhile, the Australian republican movement decided that the death of a long-serving and popular monarch was a great time to… keep quiet rather than, say, point out that our new king is frequently bested by stationery.

Not content with a change to the monarch, the UK changed prime minister, twice — with the ongoing chaos of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak book-ending the 44-day reign of Liz Truss, a premiership that was outlived by a head of lettuce.