2022: the year we slapped ourselves on the back for a job well done, and put the last few awful years behind us.

Well, maybe not. High vaccination rates liberated us from the grind of COVID lockdowns, but not from the virus’s uncontrolled spread and continuing high - if largely ignored - death rates. Spared fires, at least, it was the turn of flooding rains to stress-test our resilience, destroying lives and livelihoods in the process.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine reminded us that history - and geopolitics - was well and truly alive, And in our backyard, the regular amping-up of the China threat threw the Anglo band back together in AUKUS.

If all that wasn’t bad enough, we had the grinding tedium of a six-week ideas-free election campaign between a clamorous but intellectually torpid incumbent and a timid, risk-averse opposition. Clive’s liberation yellow was everywhere, but it was the colour teal and a bunch of smart, thoughtful women who emerged from the Liberal heartlands, demanding integrity in government and action on climate, that most freaked out the Coalition.

It was all enough to make you want to head for a well-deserved holiday in Hawaii.

Featuring Australia’s finest cartoonists, including Alston, Broelman, Dyson, First Dog, Golding, Katauskas, Knight, Kudelka, Leak, Moir, Pope, Rowe, Wilcox, and more …