Tis the season to be choosing the Australian Whinger of the Year for 2011. As I wrote in January, no country has so little to complain about yet so many people who whinge about the lousy hand life has dealt them. From a star-studded field, my nominations are:

Tony Abbott. As everyone knows, the argopelter (Anthrocephalus craniofractensis) is a fearsome beast which lurks in hollow trees and hurls rocks and rotten branches at unwary passers-by. Wikipedia, fount of all knowledge, says the argopelter has ''a slender, wiry body, the villainous face of an ape and arms like muscular whiplashes, with which it can snap off dead branches and hurl them through the air like shells from a six-inch gun''.

That's Abbott and his politics to the essence. He lies in wait, seething with frustrated ambition but without policies or ideas; only relentless attack. You name it, he's agin it. Whinge, complain, nag, whack, biff, thump. The argopelter strikes again.

Gerry Harvey. All year the billionaire boss of Harvey Norman has been bellyaching that we've let him down by buying cheaper stuff elsewhere or, worse, not buying at all.

When his campaign for a GST on overseas internet purchases fell in a heap, he oozed self-pity, grizzling that: ''Because of my profile, I then get all these threats and people hone in on me. It becomes me, Gerry Harvey, and Solomon Lew - billionaires, greedy, ugly, old, out-of-date c---s. ''