2010_awards_banner_finalist

The nominations are in, and they make for an exceedingly good snapshot of the incredible year that was. Good job you lot.

PERSON OF THE YEAR:

Honourable mentions go to Greens MP Adam Bandt: “Achieved more in Parliament in three months than all other Members combined”; Independents Andrew Wilkie: “a man of honour, integrity and principle” and Rob Oakeshott: “for inspired speech making” and Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd: “for fastest recovery from a near fatal back-stabbing…”

But the overwhelmingly popular nominees are:

  • Julian Assange:    “He changed the rules”; “for doing to FOI what Napster did to music copyright”; “Hero or villian, he’s shaking the pillars of the earth”
  • Tony Windsor:  “handled enormous pressure both before and after the govt was formed, and seems to always act with good grace and professionalism”
  • Bob Brown: “sticking with an uncompromising idea of politics and finally getting invited to the table” ; “He provides a beacon of hope in the ugly, slimy, grotty and grubby world of politics.”
  • Julia Gillard: “For outfoxing Tony Abbott *after* the Federal election result,”She has the hardest job in Australia. She is smart, witty and knows how to do her job and try and keep everybody else happy.”
  • Tony Abbott: ” for taking the Liberal Party from irrelevance to a hair’s breadth away from governing”; “he returned, like a zombie, from the dead and almost took over the world”

GOLDEN ARSEHAT FOR MOST APPALLING PERSON OF THE YEAR:

Honourable mentions to News Ltd columnist Andrew Bolt “excrutiatingly bombastic moron”; commentator Catherine Deveny; Brynne and Geoffrey Edelston “two for one”, Christopher Pyne “His head is so big he can;t see his shoes”; Clive Palmer “for simultaneously bullying governments to expand his bloated fortune and destroying a soccer team for no apparent reason”; Mark Latham and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but the most polarising people have proven to be:

And the nominees are…

  • Julia Gillard: “for empty rhetoric”; “no backbone, no principles, no beliefs”
  • Mark Arbib: “for services to himself, and himself ony”; “national and now international weasel”
  • Sarah Palin: “we have to keep telling our American friends not to vote her in. God help us all if they don’t listen”; “every time she opens her mouth a fairy dies”
  • Tony Abbott: “for infantile trivialisation of politics via mindless slogan” ; ” for the most myopic, negative election campaign I’ve ever seen”; “for losing graciouslessly”
  • Chris Mitchell: “Leading one of Australia’s major media outlets directly towards a Fox News future.”

PERSON OF THE DECADE

Honourable mentions go out to Founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales, Google, Al Gore ” for trying to wake us up”; Harry Potter creator JK Rowling, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg; ” for helping me finally catch up with all my old school friends without having to go through the painful process of meeting them in person” and “O-PRah Win-FREY!! – contributions to: tourism, naked consumerism, ambiguous sexuality, getting Americans to read something other than McDonalds drive-thru menu boards, giving away heaps of free stuff, assuaging the racial-guilt of middle America – and a heap of other stuff” but here are our yes, SEVEN nominees. There’s a lot to cover off, OK?

  • Barack Obama: “he’s competent, he’s trustworthy,  he’s honest and he’s trying, against the most appalling legacy and the most intractable political system”; “I still have hope …”
  • Bob Brown: “from founding the world’s first Green party to guiding them to the status of powerbrokers and arguably Australia’s first true third party (the Nationals aren’t a real party, don’t kid yourself) while still maintaining his principles and generally not being what we’ve been taught to expect from our politicians.”
  • Aung San Suu Kyi: “The clear leader in an otherwise uninspiring field. An unwavering advocate for freedom and democracy and a beacon for all who cherish those causes. Her release from house arrest was one of the only moments of hope in the final year of this dismal decade.”
  • Steve Jobs: ” For revolutionising the way we are entertained and informed”; “the development of mobile media technology will have long term effects. And I’m not an Apple geek.”
  • John Howard: “for completing the free-market agenda and setting the parameters for political discussion for well after his departure”; “Sound economics GFC proofed us.” “Love him or loathe him…it’s hard to think of anyone who has changed the country more.
  • Julian Assange: “for just possibly breaking into a new paradigm”; ” We should be proud that he is an Australian”;
  • Tim Flannery: ” He’s brilliant, he’s eloquent, he’s a nice guy, he’s a great communicator, and he’s helped to lift at least some of our blockish heads out of the sand to face what we’d rather not – in the gentlest and nicest possible way. He manages to treat complete idiots with respect while informing them of the scientific facts.”

PLATINUM ARSEHAT FOR MOST APPALLING PERSON OF THE DECADE:

Honourable mentions go to convicted fraudster Bernie Madoff, 2GB commentator Alan Jones “has been free to spray his bile throughout the decade”; Vladimir Putin; North Korean despot Kim Jong Il and… Daryl Somers.

But our SEVEN nominees are…

  • George W Bush: “for leaving office with his country in recession, two open-ended wars and the biggest budget deficit in history”; “How did he get elected twice?”; “worst president ever”; “really — you need me to explain?”
  • Osama Bin Laden: “Ruined the new world order – what a party-pooper”; “this former CIA asset has lured the foolish American empire into an open-ended war in the Islamic heartland, destroying any hope of global peace and prosperity for the foreseeable future”;  “Changed the way we live for the worst.”
  • Rupert Murdoch: “for his consistent abuse of power via Fox in the USA, the UK and Australia”; “uses his mega media power for evil instead of good.”
  • Robert Mugabe: “For clinging to power despite tearing the guts out of a potentially prosperous country by holding the entire population hostage”; “for his stellar efforts in running Zimbabwe.”
  • John Howard: ” Workchoices, VSU, and Iraq, ‘nuf said”; “for how we treated asylum seekers”; “unwelcome enough to make us grateful to Kevin Rudd”; “it’s no mean feat to leave the country more mean spirited”
  • Dick Cheney: “Halliburton, anyone?”; “The man behind the 43rd Arsehat of the United States of America”;
  • Sarah Palin: ” for lowering the bar for US political candidacy from hokey to moronic”; “for further dividing a country in desperate need of uniting”.

You can see all the finalists for all categories on the survey page.

*VOTE NOW FOR THE FINALISTS OF THE CRIKEY READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS