TRANSCRIPT:
2025 began with a summer of weather extremes for Australia.
"Holy heckers! We've come up to the Ross River guys just to give you a better view on the other side of the wall."
Record-breaking flood conditions in North and Far North Queensland lasted a month from January 29.
Within 48 hours, up to 1 metre of rainfall was recorded in parts of northeast Queensland.
Two people died.
What was remarkable about this event was the movement of the tropical low-pressure system. Rather than travelling quite quickly over Australia's geography, it stalled - hovering over or near land before dumping huge volumes of rain.
The flood-hit communities had little time to recover before Tropical Cyclone Alfred in early March struck southeast Queensland and northeastern New South Wales.
Newsreel: After destructive flooding in 2022, residents in Lismore in northern New South Wales are dealing with heavy rainfall and potential flash flooding again. The Bureau of Meteorology says a large part of northern New South Wales could receive six-hourly rainfall totals of between 50 and 100 millimetres. This resident, Bruce, says this is the third time he has experienced a flood in Lismore. "There is nothing left under the house. It's all gone. It's all been taken out. But upstairs, I still have lounges and carpet and kitchens up there that I couldn't get out. It's bloody tough, I tell you."
The weather system made landfall as an ex-tropical cyclone, but brought with it devastating impacts - unleashing destructive winds, heavy rain, and causing widespread flooding.
What was atypical about Alfred was its path tracking so far south.
According to records, the last time a tropical cyclone made landfall that far south was 50 years earlier in 1974 - with ex-Tropical Cyclone Zoe.
The flood impacts worsened the housing and homelessness crisis in places like the City of Logan in southeast Queensland.
Living in a park, Mick Pignat and his dog Red tried to ride out the storm, but it was challenging.
"The last four or five days has just been horrendous. You know I haven't been anywhere basically just sitting here trying to protect me home you know what I got for me and my dog so and I've had people come in staying in there cos I had nowhere else to go and they were rained out as well and tents were blown away. You put up with what you can. You battle on."
The Climate Council says the weather extremes - influenced by climate change - have seen insurance bills increase at more than double the average rate of inflation*.
That equates to Australians paying $30 billion more today on insurance than they were only 10 years ago.
Climate change has also been identified as a key driver in deadly large-scale algal bloom in South Australia.
Not all algal blooms are toxic, but the Karenia species of algae has two features worrying scientists: toxicity and adaptability.
In March this year, surfers and swimmers reported the first signs of the algal bloom.
By September, a Senate inquiry heard testimony from locals about the impact on the tourism sector and economy, with businesses reporting downturns of as much as 40 per cent and widespread summer booking cancellations.
York Peninsula Council's deputy mayor, Richard Carruthers, says his community's mental health has been harmed.
“It's really disturbing for our town that there wasn't a person on our jetty - not a person. During school holidays, normally there are hundreds of kids. All they could see on the bottom was silver. And the kids were saying, 'What's on the bottom?' and it was just dead fish. It was like a carpet of dead fish. We don't know how it affects children."
The final report of the federal inquiry released in November made 14 recommendations - including a national framework to respond to climate induced ecological events.
In Victoria, police are continuing their search for fugitive Dezi Freeman - a self-proclaimed sovereign citizen who sent the rural Victorian town of Porepunkah into lockdown.
The 56-year-old allegedly killed two police officers on August 26 in an ambush, before fleeing into the dense bushland of Victoria's high country.
And despite a $1 million reward for information leading to his capture - he remains on the run.
In the early days of the search, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush says authorities have been systematic in their approach
"Anything is possible. He knows that area. Even though we have experts in the area, he will know the area better than us. So, that's why we are putting in every expert, and supported by local knowledge."
According to criminologist Vincent Hurley, there have been four cases of fugitives over the past 40 years in Australia.
And it was the court case that captivated audiences in Australia and overseas - the triple-murder conviction of Erin Patterson over a deadly lunch involving a beef wellington laced with poisonous mushrooms - consumed by her in-laws.
Over 11 weeks, more than 252 journalists and media outlets covered the case in the country Victorian town of Morwell - located 150 kilometres east of Melbourne, with a population of more than 14,000.
Sentenced on September 8, Patterson was found guilty on all charges.
Over 46 minutes, justice Christopher Beale delivered the sentence, which was livestreamed in a first for the Supreme Court of Victoria.
"Please stand... And I fix a non-parole period of 33 years."
Erin Patterson's lawyers have lodged documents with the Victorian Court of Appeal to challenge the sentencing decision.
Chanting: "Free Palestine! Free free free Palestine!"
Tens of thousands took part in a historic march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to protest the hunger and starvation in Gaza amid the ongoing blockade and two years of war.
Police put the crowd size at 90,000, protest organisers say it was 300,000.
Experts say analysis of video footage suggests the figure is closer to 300,000.
It triggered a debate over the constitutional implied right to protest.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns says there are competing factors that need to be considered.
"I need to weigh up public order, community safety with the public right to protest. And no one should assume it open season (free of restrictions) on the bridge. We're not going to have a situation where the anti-vaccine group has it one Saturday. And then the weekend after that critical mass takes over and the weekend after that we have an environmental cause."
28 days later neo-Nazis rallied around a protest movement calling itself March4Australia - mobilising discontent over cost of living and housing pressures to use the language of hate to target people of colour.
On video, a group of neo-Nazis stormed a sacred Aboriginal burial site in the Melbourne CBD, called Camp Sovereignty, spitting on an Aboriginal flag, and chanting white power.
Nathalie Farah witnessed the attack.
"The group of Nazis started to sort of push them, and then it got pretty ugly. A lot of people got smashed on the curb. And so there's quite a few of head injuries and concussions, and there's definitely a couple of broken bones."
The head of the national security agency in February had issued a warning about the elevated risk environment for politically motivated violence and communal violence.
ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess says that covers any violent act, protest or threat intended or likely to achieve a political objective. And he said the agency anticipates there will be spikes in politically motivated violence.
In October, the Scanlon Foundation released its annual social cohesion report, finding that while cost-of-living pressures and global uncertainty continue to impact Australians, local communities remain a key source of resilience and connection.
Report co-author Dr James O'Donnell - from the Australian National University - says stronger community ties is a big part of the solution.
"And we find that among people who live in cohesive neighbourhoods that their perceived sense of national cohesion has been significantly been more resilient in the tumult of the last 12 to 24 months than those living less cohesive neighbourhoods. So in this way local protections and bonds potentially help to shelter us from current challenges."
National cohesion was tested with a deadly mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney on the first day of Hanukkah.
16 people were killed - including one of the two alleged gunmen - with at least 42 people injured, in a spot popular with locals and tourists.
Voxie 1: "There was Bar Mitzvah. There was a lot of singing and dancing and lots of people having fun and then there was a call for everyone to come in. And I was looking for my daughter outside - and it sound like fireworks going off, and a lot of it."
Voxie 2: "As a Muslim, I feel very bad for what happened. I don't know what to say more. It is very traumatising to see many, many bodies. Some of them become white as well. I think they target everyone who was there."
Police declared the incident a terrorist attack, authorising the use of special powers to aid investigators.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called it a targeted attack on the Jewish community.
And he commended the acts of bravery from citizens who offered help, including a Muslim man - Ahmed al-Ahmed, a 43-year old fruit shop owner - who is being praised for wrestling with one of the gunmen and removing his gun.
"My government will continue to stand with Jewish Australians and continue to stand to stamp out antisemitism in all of its forms. we have taken strong action. We will continue to work with the community. Because this is a time where all Australians need to wrap our arms around Jewish Australians. So we stand with them. We stand against antisemitism. We will do whatever is necessary to stamp it out."
Lynda Ben Menashe is the President of the National Council of Jewish Women in Australia.
She told SBS Hebrew, the whole community is in mourning and she wants to see a stronger response to antisemitism.
"If you can't go to Bondi Beach as an Australian or a tourist or a Sikh or a Hindu or a Jew or a Muslim, and not get shot by a terrorist - there is something seriously, seriously wrong. So action in every direction, including the policing of hate speech and serious consequences for it. And education around the notion that we are all Australians. What does happen to one community is a reflection of the health of that society."
And a milestone in Indigenous Affairs -
After almost a decade of activism and community efforts, Victoria has passed Australia's first ever treaty legislation establishing a permanent Indigenous representative body in the state parliament.
Aunty Jill Gallagher is a Gunditjmara woman and the CEO of VACCHO, Victoria's peak body for Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing.
As the former Treaty Advancement Commissioner, she says the Treaty is needed to close the gap on outcomes for Indigenous Australians.
"So what's been missing from Closing the Gap is empowerment, having some say in what we need to do to close that gap. Having some say with coming up with the solutions that empowerment is what this treaty bill gives to our elected body."
And 2025 was also the year that a new virus was recorded in Australia - affecting the agricultural industry, the potato mop-top virus was detected on a Tasmanian farm in July.
The disease does not harm humans, but deforms the crops and the size of the yield.
Farmer Stuart Applebee says steps need to be taken to avoid a repeat.
"We have these rules and regulations in place, and somehow things are coming in. We're not that far away from having a major outbreak of something here. If this is going to be a common practice."
After investigations, authorities say it may never be known how the potato mop-top virus made it to Australia.
And some good news in the animal conservation space.
Presumed extinct twice, a population of Leadbeater's possums has been found in New South Wales.
Fred Ford helped make the finding.
The senior threatened species officer with the New South Wales Department of Environment says it's exciting.
"You can confuse these guys with sugar gliders if you're not looking for them. But if you've got the search pattern in your brain and you're sort of open to the fact that something unusual might be there. You know what it is, but there's absolutely no way I was going to start ringing people up and saying, 'hey, I've found a Leadbeater's possum' until getting it confirmed by David Lindenmayer and Dan Harley as the species experts that have been working on these things for decades, because it's just too good to be true."
