Fortune was against them, they were victims of circumstance or suffering the consequences of their own actions. For some notable Australians 2014 was a very bad year.

JOE HOCKEY

Joe Hockey delivered his first budget as federal treasurer in May, an austere package featuring cuts to education, pensions and welfare and a $7 fee to see a doctor.

The year is over and still the federal treasurer is battling to get key elements of his "lifters not leaners" budget through parliament.

The $7 fee is now a $5 "option" for GPs after a backdown by Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Add to that Hockey's PR distractions of his cigar session with Finance Minister Cormann, dancing in his office on budget night and increasingly loud mutterings of a loss of confidence by the PM and others.

Way back on budget night Hockey said: "There is no easy way to repair the budget".

He can't have dreamed it would be this hard.

PETER GRESTE

The stoic Australian journalist won a Walkley Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism.

His jailing in Egypt also drove a worldwide outcry and demands for his release.

But for Greste 2014 was a year of extreme injustice and hardship after he was sentenced to seven years in prison on government charges his reporting aided the Muslim Brotherhood - charges described as "patently absurd" by Al Jazeera.

Greste has now spent a year behind bars since his arrest along with two colleagues in December, 2013.

Hopes now rest on an appeal starting January 1 and a return home for a better 2015.

PETER SLIPPER

A long saga before the courts ended in September when the former Speaker of the House of Representatives was sentenced to 300 hours of community service for misusing government Cabcharges to visit wineries.

Liberal MP Slipper outraged his party by accepting the Speaker's job from Labor PM Julia Gillard in 2011.

He then faced a sexual harassment claim - which was withdrawn - before facing court over the fraudulent use of about $900 worth of Cabcharges.

His political career ended in 2013 and he was last described by his own lawyers as reduced to a "pathetic character" by poor mental health.

BARRY O'FARRELL AND ICAC'S OTHER GREATEST HITS

Possibly the most expensive bottle of Penfold's Grange in history is the one that cost NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell his job.

After telling ICAC he had not received the pricey plonk from a lobbyist, O'Farrell had no choice to resign when his own handwritten thankyou note proved otherwise.

The NSW anti-corruption body claimed 12 state and federal Liberal politicians, who stood aside or resigned during a probe into political donations.

Federal assistant treasurer Arthur Sinodinos remains in limbo after standing aside over his involvement in a company linked to corrupt Labor politician Eddie Obeid.

TROY BUSWELL

Colourful was the word often used to describe former Western Australian treasurer Troy Buswell, who resigned from politics in September.

It was the end of a career marred by a series of indiscretions: Buswell crashed his ministerial car into multiple vehicles while driving home from a wedding in February; previously he had been forced to resign as Liberal leader after sniffing a woman's chair and snapping the bra strap of another.

The married Buswell was also revealed to be having an affair with a Greens MP.

After his car crash, Buswell revealed he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

GERARD BADEN-CLAY

The real estate agent was convicted and sent to jail for at least 15 years for violently murdering his wife Allison - a crime he denied and tried desperately to hide.

During his trial it emerged Baden-Clay had continued an affair with a colleague and lied to his wife about it as she struggled with depression.

He dumped Allison's body on a creek bank after the 2012 murder to hide his crime but deep scratches she clawed on his cheek as he smothered her - wounds he told police were shaving cuts - convinced jurors of his guilt.

The sentencing judge said Baden-Clay had shown a profound absence of remorse.

The couple's three daughters are now being raised by Allison's grandparents.

Baden-Clay has appealed.

GEORGE PELL

The former Archbishop of Sydney was a winner of sorts in 2014, scoring a plum posting to Rome to manage the Catholic Church's considerable finances.

But Pell's exit from Australia was an inglorious one, executed in the shadow of a highly critical child abuse royal commission that has cast a long shadow over the clergyman's legacy and the church's treatment of abuse victims.

The father of two girls raped by a pedophile priest said Pell had shown "a sociopathic lack of empathy", while the clergyman's public apology to another victim only caused anger as he refused to look at the man, seated metres away.

© AAP 2014