And the vile Australian white boy of the year award goes to…

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All of them.

Now, look. Nobody is going to accuse me of being a racist chauvinist. After all, I’ve spent my entire adult life pursuing progressive policy solutions. To be clear, I support vigorous reconciliation, a very large refugee intake, and most forms of feminism.

Scratch that. I am going to be labeled a racist chauvinist. Because I have to observe that this is just bloody weird. From your ABC:

Each state and territory has selected its finalist for the 2023 Young Australian of the Year Award.

Their passions range from the environment and soccer to music, Indigenous health and philanthropy.

And on January 25 one of them will become the 2023 Young Australian of the Year.

Making recycling simple

The lack of simple information about recycling did not make sense to Lottie Dalziel.

Instead of complaining about it, the New South Wales Young Australian of the Year set out to fix it.

“[I thought] why don’t I just create a platform that can inspire and educate people on how to live sustainably?” she said.

In 2018 she founded Banish, a website for Australians to get the tools they need to reduce their waste and ecological footprint.

A young woman stands in front of sydney harbour holding a trophy
The 2023 NSW Young Australian of the Year is sustainability champion and founder of Banish, Lottie Dalziel.(Supplied: NADC/Salty Dingo)

Ms Dalziel understands how hard it can be for consumers wanting to do their bit for the environment.

Using the communication skills she learnt as a journalist, Ms Dalziel spends her days sifting through information about recycling and uploading it to her website.

“[So] the everyday person can just get the Spark Notes and be able to go, ‘Yes, OK, I can recycle this or I can’t recycle it’.”

But the sustainability champion did not want to stop there.

Ms Dalziel also runs the Banish Recycling and Disposable Program, where people can send their hard-to-recycle items.

“We can actually sort them and then send them on to the right Australian recyclers who can process them,” she said.

The entrepreneur said living more sustainably did not require innovation.

“It’s just going back to what we used to do and those practices that were so kind of common and habitual back in the day,” she said.

“We’ve gotten out of that [and] into this convenience culture.”

Ms Dalziel said being named New South Wales’ Young Australian of the Year was “completely overwhelming”.

“Being in the room … with all of the other amazing nominees, it was very exciting.”

Man in big black glasses and colourful, patterned scarf holding his australian of the year award
The 2023 ACT Young Australian of the Year is award-winning performer and songwriter Kofi Owusu-Ansah, also known as Genesis Owusu.(Supplied: NADC/Salty Dingo)

Connecting through music

Growing up in Canberra, Kofi Owusu-Ansah felt as though he had to shrink into a box to fit in.

The Ghanaian-Australian singer, better known by his stage name Genesis Owusu, said he had never had a black role model growing up, and often felt like an outsider.

Then Owusu-Ansah found his voice through music.

“I was able to put in words all of the things that I had been experiencing,” he said.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.