The Year in Review: February 2009

February 2009

1. Black Saturday Bushfires.
The bushfires of the 7th of February in Victoria resulted in an unprecedented loss of life - 173 people were killed in the highest bushfire death toll in Australian history. The potential for this devastation was known in the lead up to the actual day, with predictions of extreme bushfire weather conditions - but even with pre-emptive moves such as a total fire ban for the entire state and the deployment of firefighting personnel, diaster was not averted.

Disturbingly, investigations showed that several of the fires were deliberately lit, including the fire that razed the town of Marysville to the ground, killing 34.

2. Flooding in Queensland.
It was an awful irony - while Victoria was burning, Queensland was receiving huge amounts of rain courtesy of pressure systems caused by Tropical Cyclone Ellie. Floodwaters rose to their peak in the town of Ingham, where flooding of up to 12.5 metres affected 3000 homes in the area. Some residents were trapped in their homes, while others from lower-lying areas were evacuated to the local high school.

3. The 81st Academy Awards
It was something of a forgone conclusion perhaps - anyone who has a keen enough eye to have observed Denzel Washington's Best Actor win for Training Day in the same year as Halle Berry's Best Actress nod and Sydney Poitier's induction into the Hall of Fame knows that the Academy isn't above favouring dramatic effect over merit - so it seemed fairly obvious that Heath Ledger would take away the Best Supporting Actor statuette, simply from the "dramatic effect" side of things.

The interesting thing here is that actually, Ledger's Joker is a fine performance. At once amusing and menacing, he manages to make The Joker completely unhinged without seeming over the top, helping to make The Dark Knight a pretty serious, grown-up film. Had he been alive, he may very well have found himself reading his acceptance speech on the basis of merit.

The other part of this Awards that I loved was that Kate Winslet finally took home the Best Actress Oscar - and for a part in a Nazi film. Go Ricky Gervais.

4. Kevin Rudd is stimulating.
The ALP came up with the Stimulus Package to combat the effects of the GFC. Basically, if you worked in Australia in the previous financial year, you got given $900. I'm not sufficiently across economics to know whether this was a good financial move or not, but it certainly provided ample opportunity for everyone to make gently crude puns. And therefore, in my opinion, was largely a success.