Already and this is the daily This is the daily. Ohs oh, now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Friday, the twentieth of December. I'm Billy, I'm Zara Zara. Today is our last day in the office.
Cannot believe it. What a year it's been. We do, though, I need to say at the top, have a summer series coming, So this isn't the last that you will hear Billy and I in your ears. Sadly, if that's what you wanted, we will have those episodes over the coming weeks. But today we are wrapping up the year that was. As we look back on twenty twenty four, it will.
Be a very good series. Just quickly. You're saying, cannot believe it. Do you think anyone ever gets to the end of the year and goes I can believe that it's been a long year.
I think well, I think when we're younger, time goes slower. We have had this conversation. Time goes slower, and so perhaps you reach the end of the year and you're like, oh, okay, that was a roundred and sixty five days.
Great time goes so fast when you're older.
It feels like genuinely yesterday that Sam and I sat in this room made our predictions for twenty twenty four and here we are.
And we'll get into them because I hear you were quite Acuratezara, So I'm glad you've been able to sneak that in early on too. Okay, So on today's podcast, we are going to reflect on what a big year it has been in the news. The Daily Os has been there every step of the way breaking it down for you, and today we just want to look at all of the biggest moments from politics to pop culture. I think the best way to wrap up a full three hundred and sixty five days. Oh it was a leap year.
Was it a leapier this year?
Yes, every four years it's a leap yere US election and Olympics, and that was this year.
In a year.
So we're going to go in themes. Why don't we start locally first with domestic politics?
Soar, you're coming off strong and interesting.
Your favorite topic is Australian politics, is it? Yes, a a nerd.
Kick it off for us, Okay, So I think it's fair to say that this year in Australian politics was quite backloaded, and by that I mean it was like a kind of slow start to the year, but then the back saw quite a lot of progress and quite
a lot of news events happen in this space. And I think that just goes to the fact that we are approaching an election and the government and the opposition both knew that full well as we got to you know, those last sitting weeks of the calendar, and that saw a whole lot of massive pieces of legislation passed through. So just to run you through them at the top of my head, you know, we had a social media
ban pass parliament in a matter of weeks. We had the governments helped Buy and Build to rent legislation that was of course their big housing policy that passed in the last week. And we saw changes to the way that He's indexation works also pass through parliament.
Both of those things, just a social media ban and also Hex's massive things for young people.
Exactly, and I think again that speaks to the fact that the government is really looking how to bring young people into the folds ahead of that election. In terms of where I guess the country sits as a whole, it's fair to say that cost of living still remains top of the agenda, both for voters and for the government and the opposition. We saw in the US election that the economy really stuck out as a defining feature, and that is the same all around the world. It's
especially the same here. It'll be interesting to see whether voters are talking about interest rates and things like that at the election. We know, of course that that's not something the government themselves can be changing, but we have seen in other elections that governments are punished for higher interest rates, so no doubt that'll be something that Anthony Albinezi will be thinking a lot about over the summer holidays.
I think that if we take a step back, the other big defining part of the Australian political landscape this year were two independents. So Lydia Thorpe and Fatima Payman were both part of other parties. Lydia Thorpe was part of the Greens she left last year and Fatima payment was part of the Labor Government and she left this year. And I think both of them have been part of the biggest moments in Australian politics. Lydia Thorpes of course,
and we've spoken about it on this podcast. Came when the King was visiting Australia with Queen Camilla and she stood up and staged a protest that made headlines all around the world, not just here in Australia. And then with Fatima Payman, she left the Labor Party due to their stance on the war in Gaza as.
I was of a massive moment when she did that.
Huge and you know, for a party that doesn't allow for people to cross the floor, so when you're in the Labor Party you need to vote with the Labor Party on all matters. She was standing against them and then left the party altogether. And since then she's really been making waves. And again to the point of young people.
Fatima payment is one of the youngest people in Parliament and so to see her leave one of the major parties when we know young people are turning to minor parties and independents, that'll be an interesting thing to keep in mind. And of course there was another viral moment with Fadam A. Payman and Pauline Hanson when there was a bit of a tussle about Fatima Payman's citizenship, So that'll be a story to watch in the new Year.
I'm going to take a breath now. But the other big political story I think that it would be remiss of us not to mention this year was the return of Julian Massange and that has kind of cross party lines.
That's been something that both the Labor government and the Coalition have been talking about for years and years and years, and this year was the year that he was released from prison and returned to Australia and now walks as a freeman, which you know, when we went into twenty twenty four, I don't know that would have been a foregone conclusion.
Yeah, it's absolutely crazy. Juliana Massange feels like something that just went on for years and years and felt like the never ending saga. So to see that he finally did come home, that was just one of the moments of the year domestically. And then just quickly you've mentioned you're foreshadowed that we do have an election coming up next year. It needs to happen before May. But other than that, it's in the hands of Anthony Albersi as
to when exactly it will be. What are your predictions as to what will happen there?
Well, I mean I think Firstly, in terms of the timing, A lot of the chatter seems to be that it will be held around March, just based on a whole bunch of things that need to happen for that election to be called. In terms of what will actually happen come that federal election, I don't think anyone knows really. I think based on the polling, it looks like it might be difficult for either of the major parties to
win a majority. Support for both of the major parties has continued to slip, especially as I said, among young people. And I think that we can take some notes from what we've seen globally, because twenty twenty four was the year of the election. We saw elections all around the world, and what we saw was a fairly uniform shift to the right. Billy talked me through this trend that we saw.
Yeah, we did see elections all around the world. It was actually the most amount of people that have ever voted in elections around the world than ever before. So it was a record making year four elections. I think it's safe to say that the most high profile election was definitely the US election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and it was a very dramatic lead up to the election.
Obviously we had Joe Biden drop out just months before election day, and then we also had the two assassination attempts on Donald Trump, which just major news moments. And of course Trump did win in a decisive victory, and the race was nowhere near as close as what was predicted in the polls, which once again just shows us that the polls, I think the public's trust in polls is comminishing, is definitely diminishing. They've really struggled, especially with
the US elections. To get it right, Zara, we have to play I mentioned it at the start of the podcast that last year when you and Sam did the episode on recapping Train Training three, you also predicted what would happen this year, and you did it has to be said, predict that Trump would win. Let's play a little bit of that now.
I think he'll win the nomination and he'll win the president.
So you think he's going to be the president.
I think this time next year we'll be talking about President Trump. Yeah, Okay, well we'll come back in twelve months and sea, Yes, So what's going on? Hello future, Zara, talk to you? Then, thank you for giving me that credit. I will also just add, because the clip was not played, that sam My beloved best friend and co founder, did say on the same podcast that not only would Donald Trump not win the presidency, but he believed he wouldn't win the nomination and he was wrong on two her house.
If that's okay. He was right about starting a business, so we still love him.
If you guys could see Zara's face right now, she's just like glowing knowing that she was right exactly. Zara, what was your biggest takeaway from the US election?
I think that the biggest takeaway for me was legacy media getting it wrong. And by that I mean the tone. The way that Donald Trump supporters were spoken about was again fairly uniform when it came to legacy media. If you flipped through you know, the big newspapers in the US, what you saw was this writing that suggested there was no way Donald Trump could win the presidency and that anyone that voted for him was just wrong. And what we saw was that more than half the country disagreed
with that and ended up voting. And I think that this disconnect between the way that the media sees the political class and the way that ordinary Americans and it's not just an American issue, it's all around the world. But I think that disconnect was really really clear at the US election, and it.
Was largely in legacy left wing media that you're talking about. Yeah, and after the election happened, we sat down as a newsroom and went through a lot of the coverage from other newsrooms, and the words shocking was used a lot, and we kept saying or surprise, yes, and we kept saying, how could it be shocking if more than half of the people who voted in the election did vote for Donald Trump?
It was shocking for the other side, and it was shocking because seemingly so much of the media sits on that side. But yeah, taking a step back, that sort of language around shock and surprise didn't really land for anyone else. What about you, Billy, what was your takeaway?
I'm going to stay in kind of like the media theme. I think both campaigns really embraced new media for the first time in the US election. I'm thinking about Joe Rogan, I'm thinking a bat call her daddy. Kamala Harris's team really went hard on TikTok, as did Donald Trump's team. Donald Trump also spoke to the Paul Brothers, so there was a lot of talking to influences to try to
reach a new audience that way. And I think that was really interesting and really smart on both sides to not just go go to the legacy media that we were just speaking about Sarah, but to think of new innovative ways to reach new audiences, especially young people.
I'll be really curious to see if that translates here, Like we haven't seen the same. I mean, obviously we've had a sky minister and the opposition leader on this podcast.
But we're included in that we are new media.
But I don't know that there has been a kind of all of government or all of political class embracing of new media. I think that we're still a media company, whereas I haven't necessarily seen influences engaged in the way they were in the US. I'll be really curious to see if that happens.
I actually just saw Peter Dunnan do an interview with Sam Frick I think his name is, who is the Olympic diver who's very famous on TikTok. Yeah, so he Yeah, there's an early indication that Christing possibly is going to go down a similar route to what Donald Trump did.
Wow, I mean, definitely one to watch, and we will be absolutely knocking on the doors of both a prime minister and that position leader ask them to come on this part again ahead of the election. But Billy, not just the US election that happened. Tell me about everything else in the world.
Before we get to that. We're going to hear a quick message from our sponsor. Okay, you mentioned this earlier, and I don't think I answered your question properly, But we did see across the world, not just in the US, a swing to the right. We also saw in Europe across several elections. So there was the European Parliament's election, which is the world's only democratically elected transnational organization. Was a mouthful, yes, but so it was a whole lot
of countries that were part of this election. They saw a historic surge for small far right parties across Europe, and in particular that one election caused a lot of disruption to France, who had to call a snap election for its own parliament because of the popularity, the unexpected
popularity in the rise in the far right. Like you said, and that has now led to months of disarray in French politics, and we've already seen another French PM come and go since that, and it's all because of this sudden surge in the right.
Yeah. I mean, it's a really interesting thing because so much of politics is cyclical in that it goes in cycles. You know, you have a swing to the left, then a swing to the right, and a swing to the left. But somehow this is still really surprising a lot of analysts.
Yeah, and a similar thing also happened in Austria and Portugal, and also in Germany on a state level.
Yeah, on a state level, there were grounds made from far right parties that hadn't happened or hadn't been seen since World War Two. So that's definitely one. And we saw the German Chancellor Olive Schultz voted down in a no confidence vote just this week, so definitely one to keep an eye on in the new year, yeaph.
And then elsewhere, we had the biggest election that the world has ever seen in India, where nearly one billion people voted over a six week period. Can you imagine that we have twenty six million people who need a vote in Australia, they had one billion people, unbelievable who needed to vote, and that resulted in incumbent Prime Minister Naranda Emodi returning to power for a third time. And then also just of note, Mexico elected its first female president.
Yeah, and we knew that that was a foregone conclusion because both candidates in the end were females. So either way it was going to end with a female president there.
I had forgot that, Okay, and Zara. Whilst we are still talking about overseas, a big focus in the news this year has been what has been happening in the Middle East. Yeah, the changing geopolitics there. Do you want to take us through that?
Yeah?
I mean the thing is that there are just so many different stories that are kind of interwoven and interlaced in this one region, and it has seen the biggest shift in decades just in the last couple of months alone. So obviously, I think the first thing to be said is that the war between Israel and Hummas in Gaza remains ongoing. That has not come to an end. It started this round of violence rather started on October seven
of twenty twenty three. But there does seem to be a move towards a ceasefire, and perhaps the most meaningful steps taken to a ceasefire that we've seen in months. So based on reporting, there could be a ceasefire deal over the Christmas period, but we'll have to wait and see what happens there. Elsewhere. In Lebanon, Hesbela and Israel reached a ceasefire earlier this year, and that came after
Hesbelah was really quite weakened. There had been an ongoing war since October eighth of last year between those two and Hesbela had this year lost its leadership almost entirely, and that ended up with, as I said, that deal being reached. Then if we go to another border that Israel has with Syria. In Syria, we saw the government collapse in recent weeks and there's been that vacuum of power that has been filled by the rebels there.
So I guess kind of what we can take from there is that previously last year, a lot of the war was focused on what was happening in Gaza, and now a lot of it is based on what is happening at the borders of Israel on multiple sides.
Yes, exactly, so Israel is fighting on multiple fronts, but I think the one commonality there is Iran. So the Iranian regime backs Hamas, it backs Hezbola, and until recently it was backing Syria and Bashar al Asad, and all three of those, as I just mentioned, have had quite significant changes. In recent months. We have seen Iran and Israel for the very first time directly attack each other.
But that didn't really escalate into a direct war between the two, but it certainly symbolizes the biggest shift in the region in a very long time.
An absolutely massive thing that happened this year and that will continue to keep a very close eye on in the new year. Zara, a bit of a change of pace. We're going to talk about cultural moments.
We had a fight about this.
Oh my, that sounds like we hate each other. We don't, but we just argued about what the biggest cultural moments were, and I think that speaks to how fragmented everyone's algorithms are. What's very popular on your for you page obviously isn't the same as my for you page, which is what is so addictive about TikTok and yeah, algorithms that I think is so tailored to.
You like, how interesting that in a conversation we're having about big cultural news moments, TikTok is the thing that has somehow shaped that like that is totally That in itself is so novel and I can't remember a time where it can dictate what is important to someone and not important to another person. But we'll stop with the preamble now, Billy, what was the stand up cultural moment for you this year?
Okay, well, it's not one that you agreed with, no, but I didn't want to have recency bias, so I wanted to pick one that was from earlier in the year, and I would say it was Kate Middleton, which it feels so long ago, Yeah, but that was this year.
Yeah.
But it went on for about a month where the world was wondering what had happened to her, what she was. There had been a lot of speculation about it, and in March, on Mother's Day, she put up a photo of herself with her three children, and it was then discovered that that photo was photoshopped. And I think what stood out to me was the fact that Geddy and I think AAP as well, which are both photo agencies
that we use at the Daily Os. They had put a kind of warning or cautionary message on that photo saying that this photo has been photoshopped and that you
should be wary when you use it. And I have never seen anything like that before, And that was a conversation at the time that that was unprecedented for them to do that, and it then led to even more of a storm of speculation, and it was then revealed towards the end of March that Kate Middleton had been diagnosed with cancer and had begun chemotherapy, which I think was a very sad kind of ending to that speculation. I think it caused a lot of people to reflect
on how they had reported and how they had commented. Discourse, Yeah, on her kind of disappearance, and they're not disappearance, but I would say that was, you know, in the first three months of this year, that was one of the biggest stories.
And also I just had to google this to make sure it was this year. But King Charles was also diagnosed with cancer this yes, so Prince William had both his wife and his father battling separate cancer diagnoses at the same time. It's unbelievable to think what can happen in just one year. I do think that that recency bias is perhaps clouding my judgment, and I do remember it was a huge moment at the time, and you're right, like the implications were fairly far reaching.
So I'll give you that, all right, Zarah, What was your biggest moment of the year in culture?
Well, for me, when I think back to this year, the thing that stands out is just this rise and rise and rise of female artists, and specifically the idea that people think that Charlie XCX, Chapel Ron Sabrina Carpenter,
that these people were overnight successes. And I have just loved reading, listening to watching the fact that these super stars have been decades in the making but have emerged into stardom very very quickly, and just you know, watching Chapel Roone performing busking on the street to nobody to then filling out the biggest festival audience that the world's
ever seen. I just think like it's been the year of the female pop star, of the GIRLI Pops, of the Gurli Pops, and like, really, you know, I think last year was probably Harry Styles's year. This year has to be the year of the female superstar, led of course by Taylor Swift, but she has kind of reigned supreme for a very long time. So I think it's the new entrance who really characterized twenty twenty four.
For me, absolutely love it. Should we get to sport?
Are you not going to mention Reagun? Billy has ridden here Reagun rise and fall, but maybe we can just leave that there. I don't know that we need to elaborate much more that happened.
I didn't know whether to say Reagan's rise or Reagan's full both of the above, but I think that she was also one of the biggest cultural moments. I mean, literally six months ago we had never heard her.
I know we did. Actually I will say our sport journo George did write a piece about who was ray Gun ahead of the Olympics, So we were ahead of the curve there. He always is that one. Yeah, that one could be recycled many times after the fact. But anyway, let's move on now, good segue here to the biggest sports story of the years. What's it for you? All right?
I think it is the Olympics. Australia had its best performance at an Olympics. Ever, that's in terms of gold medals won and it was again year of the girlipops. It was really the Australian women who absolutely dominated our gold medal tally. We had Arian Timmis, Jessica Fox, the or the Fox Sisters, really Emma McKeon, just so many and then Raygun. Can we include Raygun? She didn't win a gold medal, but she was included in the rise of Australian sports women at the Olympics, which was just
so exciting to see. One day, I remember we woke up to there being four gold medals having been won by the Australian Olympic team in the space of five hours or something.
It was unbelievable.
It was such a proud moment to be Australian, which is always such a nice feeling. Touche Zara, what about you?
Mine is a more recent story, but it is just the unbelievable rise of Australians. Sprinting star Quaquat who broke the nation's longest standing record in athletics and the best part is that he did it at like a school loving festival, at a school carnival school carnival, I mean where else is a good place to be a you know, decades long record.
It was like an all schools carnival, Like it wasn't here.
It was like imagining my local school carnival.
I was so nervous, but still just so exciting.
So exciting, and I think that this signals and symbolizes the next wave of Ossie talent that we're going to see. And he's just at the beginning. You know, he's got his eyes set on twenty thirty two, but we know that he ran faster than you say Bolt did at the same age, So I think we have high hopes, but not too high. I think that it's an important message about not putting too much pressure on up and coming talent because he is so young and he has
so much ahead of him. He's just going to take his time with it.
I'm so excited to see at the twenty thirty two Olympics. I'll be waiting eight years. Is that how long it is? But that will be a very exciting moment. But like you said, we can't put too much pressure on him, Zarah, that's twenty one. That's twenty twenty four. The year that was.
Wow, what a year Lots has happened, lots more will happen. TDA will be there every step of the way, as you said, can't wait.
Thank you so much to every single person who is listening to this podcast right now and to everyone who has been listening to The Daily Ors this entire year. Our podcast numbers, I've said this before on the podcast, but they've never been higher, and we're just so appreciative of every single person who listens to us appreciates new media, like we said, and we'll be back again next year to do it all again. Like we said, we've got
the Australian election, which is just like Christmas. Christmas is being extended for the Daily Ohs because we have an Australian election.
We'll wrap it up there, but take care of yourself over this holiday period. We will be back with a final good news rap tomorrow, but after that we have got our summer series, so stay tuned and have a wonderful summer.
Bye.
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Kalkotin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
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