What We Learned About Australia in 2015

This post originally appeared on VICE Australia

This has been a rough year for Australia. To me, and others who question the wisdom of Christian-themed conservatism and free market economics, 2015 seemed like an orgy of dumb where the nation did everything to prove that, yes, Australia is in fact the world's largest trailer park. Those of us confronted by the mess could only go home to tune out, drink it off, and find a better world in Fallout 4.

But 2015 was also the year the first signs of a correction started to take place. We hit peak-stupid and reached the other side. If feels nice to be on the other side, like being able to eat again after particularly savage food poisoning. It also provides a chance to work out exactly what happened and find some lessons in the rubble. So here's what 2015 taught me about Australia—and Australians.

Tony Abbott United Us. Accidentally.

Of course the story starts with Tony Abbott. He was the man who made himself minister for women. He scrapped the Science portfolio. The guy ate raw onions just because he liked them and threatened to shirtfront Vladimir Putin. He pretended to take climate change seriously but made every action to affirm otherwise. His public oratory was stilted and embarrassing. He was mean and ruthless, but unlike Turnbull, he was incapable of curbing his less popular instincts.

When Abbott woke up to the idea that people didn't like him, he spent 2015 trying to scare Australia back into line. He asked The ABC, "whose side are you on?" He held increasingly flag-cluttered press conferences. In one public appearance he used the word threat 16 times and death cult 19 times. When green groups challenged the right of a multinational corporation to build a mine on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef, Abbott called it sabotage and green lawfare.

So as far as 2015 goes, watching former Prime Minister Tony Abbott go down with a whimper on September 14, 2015 had to be the feel-good highlight. For the first time in a long time I felt optimistic.

We Woke Up with Malcolm

When Australia woke up after disposing of Abbott, there seemed a new feel in the air. Malcolm Turnbull was going to be our guy. We didn't really care about the details because he wasn't Abbott and we needed him to not be Abbott for a while. Progress couldn't help but like him and the center-right desperately hoped he could rescue them from the Christian jihadists of the Liberal Party.

The problem for Malcolm Turnbull, though, is that he is Julia Gillard in a blue tie. He knifed a sitting leader for the good of the country and his own party, but not one of them is likely to appreciate it in the long run. The New South Wales state Liberal Party already hates the guy and then he can only do so much because he's got to regularly deal with such conservatives as Mathias Cormann, Peter Dutton, and Josh Frydenberg.

This is why the Paris climate agreement for Australia was a lukewarm start to a better Australia. It's why Turnbull seems keen on wind farms at the exact same time he's pushing Abbott's "Green Lawfare" changes to keep farmers and activists from challenging the will of multinational companies. And, again, the Adani coal mine on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef got re-approved.

We're Still Really Hung-Up on Borders

Australia is a nation that loves border controls. On the right side of politics, that means treating refugees like dirt until they set themselves on fire. Literally. On the left, that means sending misogynists back where they came from. For Barnaby Joyce, it occasionally means threatening to murder Johnny Depp's dogs.

Australia has been detaining people fleeing torture and burning cities in remote, hellish corporate-run Pacific Island prisons for long enough now. It's become just another thing we do. Then in September pictures started coming in from Europe where refugees were fleeing Syria and Australia was actually moved. The public pressure was enough that Tony Abbott announced the country would take 12,000 more people than we normally would, even as Germany was talking about taking 800,000. Then Australia fucked it all up by talking about giving preferential treatment to Christian refugees over Muslims.

Then there was that time the government decided latte-sipping Melbourne needed the Border Force to straighten them out. Unfortunately, Melbourne didn't take well to a bunch of jackboots on its streets asking anyone with a brown tinge for their papers and the city rallied to tell them with a single voice to fuck off.

Is It Just Me, Or Did We Get More Racist?

2015 was a big year for Reclaim Australia, but by far the standout through it all were the boys from the United Patriots Front (UPF)—another tough-sounding acronym on Australia's ultra-nationalist scene. The guys said they were on a mission to save Australia from Islam, even though no one asked them to and Islam has been here since 1861.

But as time wore on, the group struggled to remain coherent as their ex-leader, Shermon Burgess, handed off his job to Blair Cottrell and quit because his own people were teasing him. Once the dust settled, the group announced over Facebook that they were going to launch their own political party, " Fortitude," which would inevitably compete for votes among the far-right with another anti-Islam political party, the Australian Liberty Alliance. This is the party that was recently launched in secret somewhere around Perth by Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders.

Shit Is Expensive and There Are No Jobs

All the things that made Australia fat and happy over the last decade are over. The mining boom is done, even if Australia is trying to keep the dream of easy money alive through its coal mines. The car industry will start shutting down next year, which will hit South Australia and Victoria hard. Around the country, those under 30 have become the most educated generation ever at a time where fewer people are hiring graduates. Those same people are moving to Melbourne and Sydney in large numbers despite the need to earn six figures just to afford living there.

Point is, it's been a big year for Australia. The road ahead is uncertain and filled with problems, as it is every new year, but maybe the worst is in the rearview mirror. Pat yourself on the back because you made it through, if only a little dented.

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