Born in 2013

If you were born in 2013, the Australian Labor Party managed the remarkable feat of self-destruction on a genuinely historic scale. Rudd had been restored as Prime Minister in June, ousting Gillard as she had once ousted him, and the internal warfare of the previous three years had so damaged the government that Kevin Rudd's return couldn't save it. The September election gave Tony Abbott and the Coalition a decisive majority, and three years of Labor — remarkable for its actual legislative achievements and equally remarkable for its spectacular dysfunctionality — was over.

Abbott's victory speech included the pledge to "stop the boats," and his border protection policy would be the most consistently implemented of his agenda. The asylum seeker debate was heated, complex, and morally exhausting. On other fronts: the AFL season was magnificent, Hawthorn and Fremantle contesting a brilliant Grand Final.

The summer cricket had Mitchell Johnson terrifying England again. Sydney and Melbourne housing prices were rising at a pace that was beginning to generate genuine alarm — first home buyers increasingly frozen out. Beyoncé toured, her concert at the Sydney Entertainment Centre extraordinary.

The flat white was $4.50. The smartphone meant the milk bar conversation had moved to social media, though the barbie was still in the backyard, as reliable as the Southern Cross.