As a tough year finds its denouement, there may still be reasons to give thanks - if only for who we are not.
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True, it was the year we squandered an inter-generational chance at justice for First Peoples.
True also there were five more rate rises on top of eight in 2022 driving some households and businesses over the edge.
But look abroad.
A calamitous territorial war in Europe entered its second deadly annum confirming the grim reality of more to come. And of course a whole new war exploded in the Middle-East reliving the barbarism and even some of the language of the 20th century - i.e. before the UN and the rules-based-order were invented to prevent such violence.
While Australia's parliament passed ground-breaking worker protections for victims of domestic violence among other things, Afghanistan, which the West (Australia included) handed back to the misogynistic Taliban, will henceforth jail victims of domestic violence "for their own protection". Women's shelters are to be immediately shuttered.
And as a final act of multilateral mediocrity for the year, COP28 was hosted - or was it roasted - by a petrostate. It took two weeks to arrive at the stunning conclusion that the world should transition away from fossil fuels - surely the raison d'etre for the previous 27 meetings, no?
A visual metaphor sprang to mind. That of "Florence", the giant tunnel-boring machine stuck in soft ground for a year (until last week) while excavating Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro.
The project was meant to cost $2 billion and be running by 2021, but will now cost $12 billion when (if) operational in 2028.
But for all these disappointments, Australia at least is still more stable and even hopeful than the countries with which most readily relate.
Take New Zealand. It has elected a government with hard-right and populist partners intent on repealing longstanding Maori advances. Seeking to divide, hardliners say "race-based" policies and programs have proved "divisive". Sounding familiar?
The use of Maori language inside the public service could be dumped as could the Maori Health Authority, Te Aka Whai Ora. It was established to address poor health outcomes for the country's original inhabitants. Ringing any bells?
We might be struggling to move forwards, but others are going backwards, fast.
Cue our most powerful friend. Heading into an election year, the wholly owned subsidiary of Donald Trump's ego that is the Grand Old Party, has failed to approve military spending for Ukraine, yet found time to prioritise a vexatious impeachment process against Joe Biden.
Trump 2.0 would end the war on day one (he says), presumably by caving to Vladimir Putin whom he admires.
The great republic is on the precipice of abandoning democracy. Liz Cheney, the heroic Republican who defied the Trumpian trance, warns her country is "sleep-walking into a dictatorship". The 165-year-old Atlantic magazine has dedicated its current edition "If Trump Wins" entirely to essays on the dangers of a "revenge presidency".
A common theme among its 24 senior writers is that if Trump prevails, nobody could say he hid his intent. "Everything is baked in, that's the genius of Trump," notes the magazine's editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
In a recent Fox News "townhall" a fawning Sean Hannity asked Trump, in a fleeting pretence to journalistic rigour, if he would use the presidency to go after his enemies.
"Do you in any way, have any plans whatsoever, if re-elected president, to abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people?"
"You mean like they're using right now?" Trump quipped. Cue applause.
Hannity tried again. "You would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?
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"Except for day one!" Trump responded, then adding, "I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill".
Just like he did with the 2015 Paris Agreement, Trump would quickly withdraw America's commitment to the re-affirmed COP28 target of global net-zero by 2050.
The centre-right historian Anne Applebaum predicts Trump could also withdraw from NATO.
Other day one decisions (note: day one may last a while) would likely include immediate self-pardons for any of the 91 indictments he still faces.
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Journalists and officials will be targeted. Experts say Trump has learned and will not repeat the mistake of appointing "adults of independent mind" to cabinet posts such as Rex W Tillerson (State) and James N Mattis (Defence). Rather he will promote only committed loyalists.
This, need it be reinforced, is Australia's principle security guarantor, its AUKUS sponsor, and yet it could quickly become an erratic isolationist super-power with a vainglorious tyrant in charge.
Then there's the UK where the Brexit-devoted Sunak government is beset with ministerial crises and emergency reshuffles. Sunak recently appointed a Minister for Common Sense - you couldn't make this stuff up. Evidently, his riven party, which has presided over falling living standards, has entered the desperate culture-war phase of its decline where symbols come to trump policies.
Hence its natty but numerically insignificant stop-the-boats policy (bought off the shelf from somewhere?) re-worked to banish those fleeing war and famine to the safety of ... Rwanda!
After the Supreme Court ruled it invalid, and a near rebellion of Tories, the boutique policy has finally become law.
It's not been a great year in Australia, but seriously, where would you rather be?
Mark Kenny
Mark Kenny is The Canberra Times' political analyst and a professor at the ANU's Australian Studies Institute. He hosts the Democracy Sausage podcast. He writes a column every Sunday.
Mark Kenny is The Canberra Times' political analyst and a professor at the ANU's Australian Studies Institute. He hosts the Democracy Sausage podcast. He writes a column every Sunday.
