It's the end of 2013, so let's look back and dish out some prizes to Australia's good, bad and ugly. And the winners are ...

Sarah Palin golden globe for contribution to understanding of foreign affairs

Awarded to Stephanie Banister, the 27-year-old candidate for the One Nation party who withdrew from the electoral race after an interview with Channel 7 made her a laughing stock throughout Australia.

Banister kicked off by saying "I don't oppose Islam as a country, but I do feel that their laws should not be welcome here in Australia," claiming that 2% of Australians "follow haram". This term means forbidden in Arabic – presumably she meant sharia law.

Banister went on to say that while she would ban halal food, kosher fare would be allowed. "Jews aren't under haram, they have their own religion which follows Jesus Christ," she added by way of explanation.

As her press officers no doubt made the throat-slitting motion, Banister then described the national disability insurance scheme, which does not begin until after 2016, as a policy that was "working at the moment".

Most spectacular memory loss

When Jaymes Diaz told reporter John Hill of Channel 10 news that “We have a six-point plan to make sure that we stop the boats", he might have predicted that Hill would ask him what the six points were.

Fortunately for viewers of a joyous video that went viral around the world, he hadn't. And the more times (eight in all) that Hill asked him to name them, the more it was evident that the Liberal candidate for Greenway didn't have a clue.

When conversation mercifully turned to other topics, Diaz was equally sketchy on other aspects of the Coalition manifesto, including Direct Action, the “green army” and immigration – at which point a minder stepped in and ended the interview. "We're for families," Diaz said plaintively as he was strongarmed to his car. Which brings us to ...

Most poetic end to a car crash campaign

On election night, as news spread of the "six pointless plan" man's defeat in the polls, Diaz's brother Jayson managed to crash the campaign van into a car park pillar, prompting the suggestion: "Perhaps he was trying to make a six-point turn."

Putting it on the record award for press relations

Nationals senator Ron Boswell seemed displeased when, at the height of the inquiry into politicians' expenses, Guardian reporter Oliver Laughland phoned him to inquire why he had spent $1,297.27 of taxpayers' money on valet parking his car.

"If you want to run a story on that, you'll make yourself look like the greatest dickhead of all time," said the senator. When Laughland asked if that was on the record, Boswell assured him that it was.

Body beautiful of the year

The climax of the State of Origin rugby league match was thrown into chaos when 33-year-old Wati Holmwood streaked across the pitch "like a very slow bolt of buttery lightning", as our report put it. A try Queensland scored in the chaos was disallowed, though they still won as they were leading NSW by two points.

"I'm sorry, I apologise about what happened. Am I in trouble now?" Holmwood asked a Daily Telegraph reporter. "It all happened so quickly, I don't know what was going through my head. I just wanted to make it interesting but I stuffed up Origin. A lot of people hate me now."

Mind you, he looked pretty happy at the time.

James Dean memorial award for living fast and dying young

Swino the drunken pig sleeping it off. Photograph: AAP Image/Supplied by Main Roads WA

Campers at the DeGrey River rest area, east of the Western Australian town of Port Hedland in the Pilbar, were startled to be woken in the night by a wild pig. The swine had stolen – and drunk – three six-packs of beer before going on the hunt for food, involving the demolition of several tents and rubbish bins. The hog was later seen being chased around a car by a disgruntled cow and recklessly swimming in the river before passing out under a tree.

Sadly, Swino (as he became known) met a sticky end under a truck three weeks later. But for those few days, he was an Aussie hero.

The golden lobster claws of sisterhood

Liberal senator Michaelia Cash took political rhetoric to new heights of hysteria in June. Ignoring warnings over her decibel level, Cash painted a bloodcurdling picture of Labor's "sisterhood" who had, she said "stabbed one of their own in the back" during the defenestration of Julia Gillard.

"The sisterhood stabbing one of their own in the back. You’ve always got to like that, don’t you?" hollered Cash. "When the sisterhood stab one of their own in the back … I wonder how loud former prime minister Gillard screamed when her own sisterhood knifed her in the back and took her out."

Cash then went into the realms of gothic horror when she described the unassuming Labor finance minister Penny Wong as "sitting reaping the spoils of the victory, drinking from the chalice of blood". It certainly did little to dissipate the toxic atmosphere around gender politics in Australia this year. Speaking of which ...

Back-to-the-50s golden scissors award

"He must be gay, he's a hairdresser," said Howard Sattler to Julia Gillard, asking about partner Tim Mathieson live on air. "It's not me saying it, it's what people are saying," he added.

Coming the day after the notorious menu at the Liberal fundraising dinner that boasted "Julia Gallard Kentucky friend quail: small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box", it all evoked a right-wing fantasy of a pre-feminist Australia populated by limp-wristed crimpers and sheilas who knew their place.

Most mysterious retention of job

This goes to Collingwood president Eddie McGuire, who suggested on Melbourne's Triple M breakfast show that Adam Goodes, the heroic Sydney Swans player and Indigenous Australian, would be a good choice to promote King Kong the musical. The week before, Goodes had been racially abused on the pitch by a girl who called him an ape.

“People don’t resign for a slip of the tongue,” said McGuire, who in 2011 called an area of western Sydney "the land of the falafel" and the year before described male skaters competing in the winter Olympics not leaving "anything in the closet".

Suppository of wisdom award for clarity of communication

Suppository of wisdom ... Scott Morrison speaks during a press conference in Sydney. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images

Given to Scott "operational matters" Morrison, who on 5 November told a press conference that there were “no unaccompanied minors on Manus Island”, then hours later was forced to admit that two teenage boys, who had spoken to the Guardian about their plight that week, were there after all.

“At my press conference today I stated that I understood there were no unaccompanied minors currently located on Manus Island as I had been under the impression they had been transferred to an alternate facility. “I can subsequently confirm that there are still two unaccompanied minors on Manus, who were transferred there by the previous government. I have instructed that they be relocated to Christmas Island as soon as possible.”

You can read the less than enlightening ways in which Morrisson addressed the issue at the press conference here.

Most inventive way to say "I quit"

The Sunday Telegraph crossword containing the hidden phrase 'Murdoch is evil', highlighted in blue.

The compiler of the Harry the Dog word search in the Sunday Telegraph (proprietor: Rupert Murdoch), who included the phrase "Murdoch is evil" backwards.

Golden library card award for meticulous research

Environment minister Greg Hunt cited Wikipedia to dismiss a link between bushfires and climate change. Photograph: Alan Porritt/AAP

Environment minister Greg Hunt reassured the listeners of the BBC's Newshour programme that he knew there wasn't any link between climate change and the bushfires then ravaging the Blue Mountains because he'd read it on Wikipedia.

Another golden moment came when interviewer Razia Iqbal quoted Tony Abbott's claim that climate science is "crap".

Hunt said: ''Look, with great respect, you can swear on international radio, you can invite me from Australia to do this, you can be profoundly rude, I'm happy to answer but I'm not going to be sworn at."

''Mr Hunt, I'm merely quoting your prime minister,'' came the reply.

Voice of reason award

Cory Bernardi warned same-sex marriage would open the floodgates to bestiality. Photograph: Alan Porritt/AAP

Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, who said that allowing same-sex marriage would lead to polygamy and bestiality becoming acceptable throughout Australia.

"The next step, quite frankly, is having three people or four people that love each other being able to enter into a permanent union endorsed by society – or any other type of relationship," Bernardi declared.

"There are even some creepy people out there ... [who] say it is OK to have consensual sexual relations between humans and animals. Will that be a future step? In the future will we say, 'These two creatures love each other and maybe they should be able to be joined in a union?' I think that these things are the next step."

He resigned as Tony Abbott's parliamentary secretary amid the ensuing mayhem

Old man yells at clouds award

Given to the Australian newspaper for this magnificently pompous editorial complaining about the "callow reporters and trainee talking heads" dominating the Australian media. "We can see the crude results in the way the Abbott government is being portrayed as bad, mad and chaotic by the baby faces in the press gallery and beyond," it averred.

The editorial had "a haunting and beautiful fragility to it", decided Ben Jenkins of Junkee. "Like an old man with his bathrobe tangled in a bush."

Most boneheaded sporting celebration

Awarded to St Kilda football club, who marked the end of the AFL season by setting a dwarf on fire. Blake Johnson, who had been hired as part of the evening's entertainment, was talking to some players when another set his clothes alight with an oven igniter. Though he laughed when he first heard about the allegations – he claimed in shock – AFL chief Andrew Demetriou described the incident as "reprehensible".

Services to women's sport

The Socceroos' victory over Jordan in June was somewhat soured by remarks by their German-born coach Holger Osieck at the post-match press conference.

First he told an organiser "You push me around like my wife." Then he informed the roomful of journalists that there was a German phrase which translated as "women should shut up in public".

As the audience gasped and Osieck noted his remarks were being recorded, he added: "I am going to be the darling of all Australian wives." Erm ...

Worst dance moves

It's safe to say that twerking would not have been one of the world's most popular search terms this year if it had been left to Clive Palmer rather than Miley Cyrus. He performed the dance move on the Kyle and Jackie O show on 2Day FM. Even more scarily, the billionaire-turned-politician was elected.

The most #straya crime report

A man rides his motorised esky near Tuff street at the Summernats festival in Canberra. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

"A man has escaped conviction and kept his drivers' licence after driving a motorised esky to McDonald's while drunk on pineapple vodkas and low-carb beers."

Bromance of the year

Dreamy ... Tony Abbott during question time at parliament house. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/AAP

The Australian's foreign editor Greg Sheridan went to Sydney University with Tony Abbott, before Abbott went to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar and did not do very well in his degree.

Sheridan has written extensively about Abbott, and the pair are still close. The Monthly cut and pasted his musings into a piss-taking account of their "bromance for the ages". Here are some choice lines:

Abbott was my best friend … We talked over everything. The meaning of life, the purpose of politics, who’d win the rugby league grand final, what girls we planned to ask out, petty squabbles we might have had with our parents. [12 September 2012] Abbott is brave as a lion. [22 July 2010] The speeches he works on most show the beneficial effect of an Oxford education. [21 July 2012] To say the Syrian conflict involves “baddies versus baddies” is almost technical in the precision of its accuracy. [3 September 2013] There is no scenario under which Indonesia could plausibly object to Tony Abbott’s boats turn-around policy. [8 July 2013]

The craftiest rope-a-dope sporting tactic

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Australian team celebrates Ashes victory in the changing rooms at Perth. Photograph: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

In a memorable few months stretching from June to August, the Australian cricket team were world beaters in incompetence. If they weren’t brawling in low-rent theme pubs, they were being thrashed by the English in increasingly new and interesting ways.

Fast forward a few months though, and the truth was revealed. It was one huge confidence trick played on the Poms. Australia were in fact brilliant: and won back the Ashes in just 14 days of cricket. David Warner was a snarling, aggressive opener; Mitchell Johnson the fastest thing this side of an F1 circuit; Ryan Harris a shambling genius and, most shocking of all: Michael Clarke and Shane Watson actually seemed to like each other.

Most untoward use of a wine glass

Peter Dowling has a way with wine. Photograph: peterdowling.com.au

Other politicians round the world had sexted, but Peter Dowling, chair of the Queenland parliament's ethics committee, gave it a new twist by sending his lover a picture of his penis dunked in a glass of red wine. Another picture featured him appearing to drink the wine – well, it would have been a shame to waste it. Sadly for him, the pictures made it to the media, and Dowling resigned amid international hilarity.

Geri Halliwell award for services to shortlived comebacks

Who else but Kevin Rudd: from Prime Minister to retirement in a few short months. "Gotta zip," was his final catchphrase. And then he did ...