Reporter: Peter Harvey
It's usually our "first commandment" here at 60 MINUTES. Keep your eyes wide open - on tomorrow - and the next big story.
But, once a year, we look back over our shoulder, at the way it was, the stories that stick in the memory, yours and ours.
The spectacular, inspiring, the heart-breaking and the things that still give us hope or a smile. Come with us on a journey back through 2008.
Special features:
SOUNDSLIDE: Year in Review
Full transcript:
INTRODUCTION - PETER HARVEY. It's usually our first commandment here at 60 Minutes. Keep your eyes wide open, on tomorrow and the next big story. But once a year we look back over our shoulder at the way it was. The stories that stick in the memory - yours and ours. The spectacular, inspiring, the heartbreaking and the things that still give us hope or a smile. Come with me on a journey back through 2008.
STORY - PETER HARVEY. TARA BROWN: It is taking all my willpower not to run out of here.
LIAM BARTLETT: What's going on?
DUSTIN HOFFMAN: It's a first date.
LIZ HAYES: I'm feeling a little nervy, myself.
BOB IRWIN: I'm Mr Independent.
LIAM BARTLETT: You are not supposed to be here.
GORDON RAMSAY: You hypocritical (bleep).
GEORGE CLOONEY: That's a nice thing to say.
PETER HARVEY: Sunday night and our journeys become your journey. We chase the story and bring you back the pictures, travelling to every corner of the earth to do it. This year, though, the biggest story centred around the end of the earth as we know it. Almost, anyway, as the world's financial system cartwheeled into chaos. We saw the warning signs months ago - thousands of Australian families pushed to the limit by mortgage squeeze.
SHERALEE: I tried to commit suicide. I just thought, well, if I end it then I don't have to be around to see something I'm going to lose.
PETER HARVEY: America's sub-prime crisis spread across the world like a virus.
AMERICAN WOMAN: When you've had the home and it's taken from you or it's gone, you've lost it, it's hard.
PETER HARVEY: Then catastrophe as the tyres blew out on Wall Street - shares plunged, banks went bust.
ELLEN FANNING: If you want to know where your money and dreams went to, you have to come here - the New York Stock Exchange - where ordinary people are gathered as if they're watching a train wreck.
PETER HARVEY: Suddenly, once-rich Americans are living in their cars.
ELLEN FANNING: Does this still feel like America to you?
BONNEE: No, it doesn't. It feels very lonely. It feels sad, I feel forgotten.
PETER HARVEY: It's those personal stories that make 60 Minutes what it is - getting to the heart of the matter through the eyes of those who've lived it. And sometimes, we just have to get amongst it ourselves. You can't deny, it's just plain good fun. Peter tried out Aero GP - like Formula One in the sky. Everything happens in an instant at incredible speed. One wrong move can mean disaster.
PETER: Oh yeah!
ANDY: And over we go.
PETER: Oh yeah! Oh Andy.
PETER HARVEY: But perhaps most breathtaking of all were those amazing birdmen who defy gravity for the ultimate thrill - human flight.
SINGLEMAN: It's fantastic, it's personal human flight. There's nothing like it, except being a bird.
PETER HARVEY: Liz even gave it a go herself in the safety of a wind tunnel.
PETER HARVEY: And we went to sea in search of a mythical giant wave off the coast of Tasmania at a place called Petra Branca. Veteran surfers Tom Carroll and Ross Clarke-Jones risked everything. But along with the thrills and spills come stories of the human spirit. We may have been doing this for 30 years but when we meet incredible individuals who have overcome tremendous adversity we're touched in the very same way you are. Who could forget Bianca Saez? Trapped in the terrifying world of Tourettes Syndrome. Tara met a young woman racked by uncontrollable tics and outbursts - her family at their wits end.
BIANCA'S MUM: To see her like this... it's a nightmare.
PETER HARVEY: The family home was a disaster and Bianca was desperate for help.
BIANCA SAEZ: I'm sorry Mum.
PETER HARVEY: But then, a miracle - radical brain surgery turned her life around - she's a new person.
BIANCA SAEZ: It has changed my whole, entire life and I'm so proud of myself for doing it.
PETER HARVEY: Lauren Huxley was the victim of an evil man - a man she didn't even know.
LAUREN HUXLEY: Well, he's just a monster.
PETER HARVEY: He bashed her and left her to die in her burning home. Doctors told her parents to expect the worst.
LAUREN'S DAD: You make her live, I said, and we'll do the rest.
PETER HARVEY: Ray Martin caught up with her as she rebuilt her life...
RAY MARTIN: Do you like what you see?
LAUREN HUXLEY: Yeah, I love it.
PETER HARVEY: ..with the constant love and support of her family.
LAUREN HUXLEY: I feel great. I'm healthy and happy everything I want to be.
KAREN BELL: It was the most horrible feeling in the whole world.
PETER HARVEY: It was terrible we ever had to meet Karen Bell but her story had to be told. Her three children cruelly gassed in the family car by her abusive husband.
LIZ HAYES: Was he trying to hurt you?
KAREN BELL: Yes, he was trying to make me feel guilty for the rest of my life and I do.
PETER HARVEY: Karen was caught in the terrible cycle of domestic abuse. Her husbands final act - taking the childrens' lives and his own - the ultimate unforgivable revenge.
KAREN BELL: You live for your kids, you try and make it the best life that you can and they've just been taken away.
PETER HARVEY: But alongside tragedy, we can still find hope and someone to admire. Cassandra Gauci, the teenager who lost both her parents but determined she and her four siblings wouldn't be separated.
CASSANDRA GAUCI: My parents, never ever in their lifetime would think that we were going to get split up. I don't feel that that is going to happen, ever.
PETER HARVEY: What strength, as she took on the roles of Mum and Dad.
LIZ HAYES: It's not going to be easy, but you're up to it?
CASSANDRA GAUCI: I'm up for it. I can do it.
ROSEMARIE ZAMMIT: I think he chose you.
PETER HARVEY: Rosemarie Zammit showed us more special bravery and the strength of a mother's love. She and husband Oliver made the heartbreaking decision to donate their son Doujon's organs after he was bashed into a coma while on holiday in Greece.
OLIVER ZAMMIT: The doctor explained to me that he was brain dead. I knew when it was explained there was no brain activity that there was no way I was taking my son home alive.
PETER HARVEY: Even in the depths of their grief the couple wanted to meet those who's lives Doujon had saved.
KOSTA: The only thing I can do is promise you that I'm going to look after it.
ROSEMARIE: I'm sure you will.
LIZ HAYES: It's your heart now.
KOSTA: It's our heart.
PETER HARVEY: Queenslander Troy Critchley knows better than anyone how life can change in a split second.
TROY CRITCHLEY:t I don't remember whether it was the people or the post I hit first, I just don't know.
PETER HARVEY: At a charity event in Tennessee, his drag racer speared off the road, killing six people and maiming another 22.
MOTHER: He killed my kids. He killed my kids.
PETER HARVEY: A terrible accident but incredibly, Troy was charged with six counts of homicide and 22 counts of assault and faced a life in prison.
PETER OVERTON: Was it your fault?
TROY CRITCHLEY: I don't believe so.
PETER HARVEY: Thankfully, common sense and justice prevailed. Troy received just 18 months probation. Sometimes, the hardest battles can produce the brightest smiles. Nick Vujicic - born with no limbs. But nothing stops him. He went to uni, got a good job and now offers inspiration around the world.
PETER OVERTON: No arms, no legs...
NICK VUJICIC: ..no worries, mate.
PETER HARVEY: How wonderful it would be if we didn't have a war to report that the world could have a rest. Some dream, some hope.
LIAM BARTLETT: You are not supposed to be here.
PETER HARVEY: Liam crossed swords with the Russian army in Georgia when the red bear awoke from a 20-year hibernation, ready for a fight. The troops and the tanks crashed across the frontier in the break-away regions of neighbouring Georgia. Russian leader Alexander Putin, seen as the new Stalin, flexing his muscles and eyeing a rebuilt Russian Empire. Tara took us to the shadowy back streets of the Pakistan border region. The town of Pushawa, where it's a war against terrorism. It's a safe haven for the Taliban where violence and death occur almost daily and Pakistanis like Imran Khan fear for the future of their homeland.
IMRAN KHAN: There were 60 suicide bombings last year. We are moving towards a state of chaos.
PETER HARVEY: There's a war in Mexico too between drug cartels and the cops with the ordinary people caught in the middle.
WOMAN: They are killing children, they are killing women.
PETER HARVEY: But we met a new lawman on this drug frontier.
ALBERTO CAPELLA: You have to be crazy to be here.
PETER HARVEY: Alberto Capella - the man they call Tijuana's Rambo, who has vowed to stop the smugglers or die trying.
MICHAEL USHER: You're telling them, "Go for it"?
ALBERTO CAPELLA: Kill them. Go for it.
PETER HARVEY: And there were other battlefronts in the fight to save what is left of our natural environment. Some of them right here at home - like the Coorong wetlands near the mouth of the Murray-Darling.
CHARLES WOOLEY: Welcome to the lovely Lake Alexandrina at the mouth of the Murray. It is Australia's largest fresh water lake. Well, it was.
PETER HARVEY: And off shore, the plastic waste with which we've fouled every corner of oceans we thought were eternal.
LIAM BARTLETT: That is straight from the turtle's stomach?
KATHY: That's straight out of the turtles stomach and look at the size of that piece. That is huge.
PETER HARVEY: Killing sea life and choking our coastlines.
LIAM BARTLETT: Everybody's crap from all over the world.
PETER HARVEY: Meanwhile the world chews through oil like there's no tomorrow. Now, we're finding new ways to extract it from the earth. In Canada, e massive oil-sand industry is the new boom.
LIAM BARTLETT: And presto! Synthetic crude oil! Black gold, plenty of it.
PETER HARVEY: But there's huge cost - Devastation of the forests and enormous greenhouse gas emissions from the process.
MAN: We're going to be tearing this up to extract oil from the oil-sands.
LIAM BARTLETT: This is right up there with the Amazon.
MAN: That's correct. Larger than the Amazon.
PETER HARVEY: Luckily, every now and then the world can still turn on a grand show.
MAN: We've got an explosion going on here. Life is happening, it's buzzing.
PETER OVERTON: You like talking about this stuff, don't you?
MAN: Who bloody wouldn't?
PETER HARVEY: The outback in flood. And nature provides a spectacular display of wildlife.
PETER OVERTON: Look at them! There they go again.
PETER HARVEY: Perhaps to show us exactly what we stand to lose.
PETER OVERTON: If the water goes up or down just a little bit, then their very survival, their existence, is on a knife's edge.
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: This is one of the coldest places on Earth.
PETER HARVEY: And Liz met one man who's fought all his life to care for our environment.
PETER HARVEY: Taking us by the hand the hand down almost every trail in the realm of nature - Sir David Attenborough. He says he's retiring - but at the age of 81 still as engaging and charming as ever.
LIZ HAYES: Where do you get your energy from?
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: Well, there's this breakfast cereal.
PETER HARVEY: He wasn't the only man who cast a spell over Liz. George Clooney is also one of nature's gentlemen.
LIZ HAYES: You are on so many lists it's frightening me.
GEORGE CLOONEY: Yes, I'm a list man.
LIZ HAYES: You are on the sexiest, powerful, smartest, beautiful, best dressed, hottest hotties.
GEORGE CLOONEY: That's the one... I wrote that list.
PETER HARVEY: Dustin Hoffman made the 'best flirt' list.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN: It's a first date.
LIZ HAYES: I feel a little nervy myself.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN: That's good.
PETER HARVEY: And for a first date it didn't take long to get personal.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN: What kind of guy do you like?
LIZ HAYES: I've been married a couple of times now.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN: But look how young you are. No, you are. You love life.
LIZ HAYES: I do.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN: Yes! Especially after you got out of those two. You got rid of those two dudes, right?
LIZ HAYES: Correct! PETER OVERTON: I'm here to talk about tax.
PAUL HOGAN: Oh, I'm an expert. Come inside. I'd be delighted to spill my guts.
PETER HARVEY: Paul Hogan may have had a change of face in recent years but he's still the irreverent larrikin we all know and love.
PAUL HOGAN: Oh, there's nothing like a stroll along the beach with a camera crew.
PETER HARVEY: When the Aussie taxman came gunning for him, he answered with both barrels.
PAUL HOGAN: Lighten up, boys, you know, can't you take a joke? And get off my case because you're not getting any more money out of me. Not a cent.
PETER HARVEY: You catch a shooting star when you can and there's none rising faster than Keira Knightley.
MICHAEL USHER: Your face is there on the big screen the entire time.
KEIRA KNIGHTLEY: I was actually just sitting through it going, "God, you look weird."
PETER HARVEY: But this is one heavenly body, albeit a thin one, who has remained very down to earth.
KEIRA KNIGHTLEY: My mum swears quite a lot, my doesn't swear and he says, "You know, you don't take drugs, you don't drink much, "you don't smoke, as far as it all goes swearing is quite minor."
MICHAEL USHER: That is your vice - swearing.
KEIRA KNIGHTLEY: That is my vice - swearing - and I really enjoy it.
GORDON RAMSAY: Are you aware how filthy your kitchen is? The food was sh*t.
PETER HARVEY: But Keira had nothing on the King of F-word - Gordon (bleep) Ramsay. Even an Australian Senate enquiry claimed his show was too salty.
GORDON RAMSAY: They're complaining about swearing in Australia? You hypocritical (beep).
PETER HARVEY: No censorship needed for Andre Rieu. It was all good clean fun when Tara met the maestro bringing classical music to the masses.
ANDRE RIEU: In my concert people are not sleeping.
PETER HARVEY: Confounding the critics with astounding worldwide success.
ANDRE RIEU: I'm a nice guy - I don't know why they hate me so much.
PETER HARVEY: And bringing a special local flavour to his Australian shows. No one embraces the Australian spirit quite like this familiar family, the Irwins - Terri, Bindi and young Robert - carrying on Steve's legacy. Peter chipping in to do his bit.
PETER OVERTON: I honestly thought I would never ever in my life, I've done some things, but never be lying on a crocodile with an Irwin.
TERRI IRWIN: You know, I said that exact same thing.
PETER HARVEY: And isn't the young fella a chip off the old block.
ROBERT IRWIN: I'm going to fall.
PETER OVERTON: Can I help you?
ROBERT IRWIN: No, I'm 'Mr Independent'.
PETER HARVEY: It's our hope that at the end of 60 Minutes each week you'll say, "Well, I didn't know that". I say it and I work here. If there's one world that contains mysteries to be revealed along with problems we all want to solve - it's the world of nature. Liam made a lot of friends in the animal world this year.
LIAM BARTLETT: What's going on?
WOMAN: We should be standing in the middle of the jungle full of wildlife and instead we are listening to chainsaws PETER HARVEY: As their forests vanish, Australia's doing its bit to help save beautiful Sumatran orang-utangs from extinction.
WOMAN: The ultimate would be to see a pair with a baby back out in the wild - that would be the best, Oh, what are you doing?
PETER HARVEY: Liam wasn't so sure about the creepy crawlies he met with Ruud Kleinpaste - the 'Bug Man'. Ruud loves them all. The deadlier the better.
LIAM BARTLETT: What would happen if that bit one of us now?
RUUD KLEINPASTE: I would say you've got 20 minutes.
PETER HARVEY: Australia is his happy hunting ground for new medicines.
RUUD KLEINPASTE: These creatures rule the world. They could be the next huge discovery.
PETER HARVEY: Then Liam went from the minuscule to the mighty. Meet the 'Bear Man', Charlie Vandergaw from Alaska.
CHARLIE VANDERGAW: When I look at a bear it says, "pet me".
PETER HARVEY: Charlie used to hunt bears, now he hugs them.
LIAM BARTLETT: What do your family think when they see you doing this?
CHARLIE VANDERGAW: That I'm crazy.
LIAM BARTLETT: Got a slight visitor here, it's a bit difficult to ask you another question at the moment. So we'll just take a break.
PETER HARVEY: It takes all kinds to make up a world. And in the course of a year we cover the heights and depths of human behaviour. The weird... ..the wonderful It's a girl. The good... ..and the evil. I killed a man and ate him. The naughty. Drink down, large amounts of p***. The downright nasty.
LIAM BARTLETT: You lit two dozen fires, partly because you were bored?
ARSONIST: Yeah.
PETER HARVEY: And some that simply make you shake your head.
JENNY DEAVES: John's my father and he's also my partner.
JOHN DEAVES: She was a beautiful desirable woman.
PETER HARVEY: But well finish as the year began. when we marvelled at the stamina and courage of young Aussies Justin Jones and James Castrission. Paddling a tiny kayak, the pair set out from Australia to tackle the mighty Tasman. Overcoming huge seas and violent storms, shark-infested waters and the stress of endless hours together to emerge on the shores of New Zealand as heroes. The adventures, the disappointments and the splendours, we've seen it all and there's plenty more to come.
HUGH JACKMAN: Sorry mate, I'll be about another half hour.
LIZ HAYES: Bloody hell!
