Michael Wesley As Australia takes the serious step of referring its top trading partner to the World Trade Organization, China watchers wonder whether a truce is now impossible.

Rick Morton As a senate inquiry launches a scathing critique of the legislative failures that led to the destruction of the Juukan Gorge caves, traditional owners in the Northern Territory are fighting a fracking project that threatens water sources and sacred sites.

Karen Middleton As Australia enters what may be an election year, Scott Morrison’s approval is high rather than solid, while Anthony Albanese has strategy rather than tactics.

Christos Tsiolkas In 2020 we mostly had to watch films at home, and the most exciting possibilities still emerged from independent cinema.

Neela Janakiramanan Victoria, a state that had as many as 700 new daily Covid-19 cases at the peak of its second wave, has gone many weeks without community transmission of the virus. Yet it now seems the health system is at risk of being pushed further beyond capacity than ever before.

Paul Bongiorno As the year like no other draws to an end, the challenges and crises it presented have highlighted the nation’s strengths and dramatised its weaknesses. Facing up to these realities will be particularly daunting for our political leaders as they ready themselves for the next federal election.

Richard Ackland “Thank you, Reverend Pastor Houston, for those prayers and your message about rich men walking upright through the eye of a needle, with or without a camel. Boys, remember the pastor’s encouraging words about how religion and real estate can work together in the name of our Lord.” 

The quality that makes Scott Morrison uniquely equipped to lead Australia in 2021 is his preternatural inability to feel shame. There were hints of this early on – in the treasurer who held aloft a lump of coal in parliament, the Immigration minister with an almost absurd commitment to the phrase “on-water matters” – but since his elevation to the prime ministership, it has become the defining feature of his government.

Maxine Beneba Clarke From the trauma of a burning nation, to the desperation of Covid-19, to the united voices of the Black Lives Matter protests, this year called for resilience like few before it.

Jonathan Pearlman President Joe Biden’s big policy agenda starts with Covid-19. In first 100 days US to rejoin World Health Organization and Paris Agreement. Donald Trump’s legacy is a Supreme Court with a conservative majority.

Andy Butler We must support Australian artists in their most ambitious visions to understand the seismic shifts of our time.

Steven Amsterdam The winner of the Horne Prize 2020 is this poignant essay about homesickness amid the travel restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kate Holden Garth Nix, one of Australia’s most internationally successful authors, says lying on the couch with his eyes shut is a crucial part of his working life.

Annie Smithers

Margaret Simons As the heat of summer starts to bite, the focus of every keen gardener turns to irrigation.

Linda Pearce A quarter-finals appearance at the US Open was Alex de Minaur’s best on-court performance to date, but the world No. 23 rates making it through the mental challenges and disruptions of 2020 as his biggest achievement.

Cindy MacDonald Test your general knowledge with our weekly quiz.