Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift.

Australian History Timeline (Part 3)

Australian States & Territories: Christmas Island - Cocos (Keeling) Islands - New South Wales - Norfolk Island - Northern Territory - Queensland - South Australia - Tasmania - Victoria - Western Australia

Today in Australian History

Events in Australian History

Events 401 - 594 of 594

Labor Elected

2007-11-24 Australians elect the Kevin Rudd-led centre-left Australian Labor Party at the federal election, ending the eleven-year tenure of the John Howard-led centre-right Liberal/National coalition government.

  • 2008-02-13 Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes an historic apology to Indigenous Australians, especially to the Stolen Generations who suffered forced child removal and assimilation [1]
  • 2008-08-06 Access 31 TV stops broadcasting in Perth, Western Australia
  • 2008-10-27 The banking group BNP Paribas states that Australia is in a risky position with regards to the global financial crisis as foreign liabilities accounted for 60% of the nation's GDP
  • 2009-02-07 Bushfires in Victoria left 173 dead in the worst natural disaster in Australia's history.
  • 2009-04-03 Australia formally adopts the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
  • 2011-10-27 Royal Australian Navy announces discovery of wreck of a World War II submarine (likely Japanese) in Simpson Harbour, Papua New Guinea during Operation RENDER SAFE
  • 2012-02-04 Tens of thousands of people are stranded by floods in the Australian states of New South Wales and Queensland
  • 2012-03-06 9,000 residents are evacuated from Wagga Wagga, Australia, as the Murrimbidgee River threatens to overflow
  • 2012-03-22 Australia's most wanted man, Malcolm Naden, is captured after seven years on the run in Gloucester, New South Wales
  • 2012-06-12 An Australian coroner's report rules that a dingo was responsible for the death of a baby in 1980
  • 2012-06-21 A boat of 200 asylum seekers headed to Australia capsizes and 110 survivors are rescued
  • 2012-12-14 Australian Joel Parkinson wins the 2012 ASP World Tour
  • 2013-01-08 130 wildfires across Australia’s east coast force thousands to evacuate their homes
  • 2013-01-25 Tropical cyclone Oswald makes landfall in Queensland, Australia, causing mass flooding
  • 2013-06-26 Kevin Rudd defeats Julia Gillard in a leadership battle to become Australian Prime Minister
  • 2013-09-07 Tony Abbott becomes Prime Minister of Australia after a Liberal-National Coalitions wins the election
  • 2013-09-28 Hawthorn defeats Fremantle to win the 2013 Australian Rules Premiership
  • 2014-01-28 Peter Cosgrove is named the next Governor-General of Australia
  • 2014-02-09 Australian National University scientists discover the oldest known star at 13.6 billion years old
  • 2014-11-30 Australia experiences its hottest spring and second-hottest November recorded
  • 2015-01-31 Australia defeats South Korea in football to win the 2015 AFC Asian Cup
  • 2015-05-17 Melbourne Victory FC defeats Sydney FC to win the Australian A-League
  • 2015-07-03 Adelaide Crows Australian Rules Football coach Phil Walsh is murdered by his son Cy at his Somerton Park home
  • 2015-09-03 Chris the sheep breaks the world record for biggest shorn fleece 40kg (88lb) near Canberra, Australia

Event of Interest

2015-09-14 Malcolm Turnbull ousts Tony Abbott as Australian Prime Minister and leader of the ruling Liberal Party

  • 2015-11-02 Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull scraps Knights and Dames from Australia's honours system
  • 2016-09-21 Genomic study finding Australian Aboriginal oldest known civilisation on earth published in "Nature"
  • 2016-10-25 4 killed on a theme park ride at Dreamworld, in Queensland, Australia

Trump and Turnbull Phone Call

2017-01-28 US President Donald Trump and Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull have a contentious phone call over deal for US to take 1,250 refugees

  • 2017-02-21 Plane crashes into shopping centre in Essendon, Melbourne, Australia killing the five people on board
  • 2017-03-25 Largest banana split ever, at 8,040 metres long, is made in Innisfail, Australia
  • 2017-03-28 World's largest dinosaur footprint at 1.7 metres found in Kimberley, Western Australia
  • 2017-06-29 Vatican treasurer Cardinal George Pell charged with historic sexual offenses in Victoria, Australia
  • 2017-07-15 Australian Justine Damond killed by Minneapolis police officer after calling 911 for a disturbance
  • 2017-07-19 Archaeological dig in Kakadu National Park extends Aboriginal peoples time in Australia to 65,000 to 80,000 years ago
  • 2017-07-29 Terrorist plot to bring down a plane averted in Sydney, Australia, 4 arrested
  • 2017-08-14 Parliamentary citizenship scandal deepens in Australia after Barnaby Joyce, Deputy PM revealed to be a New Zealand citizen
  • 2017-08-17 Anti-immigrant One Nation party leader Pauline Hansen is widely criticized for wearing a burqa into the Australian parliament
  • 2017-11-15 Australian postal vote on same-sex marriage revealed - 61% vote yes
  • 2017-12-05 Online store Amazon begins operations in Australia
  • 2017-12-07 Australia's parliament votes to legalize gay marriage
  • 2017-12-09 Same-sex marriage is legalized in Australia after being signed into law by the Governor General
  • 2017-12-12 Australian shopping mall firm Westfield is bought by French property company Unibail-Rodamco for $15.7 billion
  • 2017-12-14 Australian government establishes a Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry
  • 2018-01-07 Sydney, Australia has its hottest day for 80 years as Penrith reaches 47.3°C degrees
  • 2018-01-09 The first same-sex marriages take place in Australia after legislation passed a month earlier
  • 2018-01-18 First drone rescue of swimmers by lifeguards in New South Wales, Australia
  • 2018-03-06 American WWII aircraft carrier USS Lexington rediscovered in Australia's Coral Sea, lost during 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea
  • 2018-03-06 World's oldest message in a bottle found in Western Australia, thrown from German ship Paula 132 years ago (12 June 1886)
  • 2018-03-18 Bushfire in Tathra, New South Wales, Australia, destroys over 70 buildings
  • 2018-03-25 First scheduled non-stop flight between Australia and the UK, leaves Perth for Heathrow airport in London, arrives after 17 hours
  • 2018-04-04 21st Commonwealth Games open in the Gold Coast, Australia
  • 2018-04-30 World's oldest known spider, a female trapdoor, dies after being killed by a wasp sting in Western Australia, aged 43
  • 2018-05-11 Mass murder-suicide in Margaret River, Australia, grandfather shoots six members of his family and himself
  • 2018-05-22 Australian court finds Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson guilty of covering up sexual abuse in 1970s, most senior Catholic priest to be convicted
  • 2018-05-24 World's largest cat-proof fence (44 km / 27.3 miles) completed at Newhaven Wildlife Sanctuary, central Australia to protect endangered species
  • 2018-07-20 Australian businessman James Packer announces he has quit 22 directorships due to mental health issues
  • 2018-07-30 Australian Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson resigns after being convicted of concealing sexual abuse
  • 2018-08-05 Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declares "now we are a land of droughts" as 99% of New South Wales affected
  • 2018-08-07 Australia's population hits 25 million according to Australian Bureau of Statistics
  • 2018-08-08 Australia's most populous state New South Wales declared 100% in drought
  • 2018-08-15 Australian Senator Fraser Anning evokes Nazi euphemism "a final solution to the immigration problem", in proposing outlawing Muslim immigration into Australia in parliament speech
  • 2018-08-21 Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull calls for and wins a leadership vote 43-35 over Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton
  • 2018-08-22 Australia's House of Representatives is closed down early because of the Liberal Party leadership battle
  • 2018-08-24 Scott Morrison becomes Prime Minister of Australia after defeating Peter Dutton in a leadership spill, replacing Malcolm Turnbull
  • 2018-08-26 Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop resigns after losing Liberal Party leadership contest
  • 2018-09-17 Needles purposely hidden in strawberries in Australia prompt government to order an investigation
  • 2018-09-27 Justin Milne, head of Australian Broadcasting Corporation resigns amid allegations of firing journalists for the government
  • 2018-10-03 Cervical Cancer could be eliminated in Australia within decades because of government vaccination program, according to report in "The Lancet Public Health"
  • 2018-10-17 Australian state of Queensland decriminalizes abortion
  • 2018-10-20 Australia's center-right coalition government loses its 1-seat majority by losing the Wentworth by-election

Event of Interest

2018-10-22 Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison makes a public apology to victims of child sexual abuse in institutions

  • 2018-10-27 Australian 7-year old mare Winx wins unprecedented fourth consecutive Cox Plate at Moonee Valley in Melbourne; her record 29th-straight win and her 22nd Group 1 racing success
  • 2018-11-09 Attacker stabs three, killing one in Melbourne, Australia, with homeless man hailed as hero for using shopping trolley to stop him
  • 2018-11-26 Third of a species begin dying (23,000) over a two day period, the spectacled flying foxes, unable to survive heatwave of 42 degrees in northern Queensland, Australia
  • 2018-11-28 Australian state Queensland raises its fire warning to "catastrophic" for the first time as 130 fires burn
  • 2019-01-16 Australian Bureau of Meteorology tweets last four days were the country's hottest on record with Tarcoola, South Australia, reaching 49 C (120 F), Port Augusta 48.5 C (119 F)
  • 2019-01-24 17 temperature records broken in South Australia including highest ever recorded for capital Adelaide at 46.6C
  • 2019-02-01 January 2019 was Australia's hottest month on record according to the Bureau of Meteorology
  • 2019-02-03 Dam in Townsville, Australia, deliberately opened flooding 20,000 homes after city receives record 3.3ft of rain in a week
  • 2019-02-06 Honeybees are able to add and subtract and understand concept of zero according to research from RMIT University in Australia
  • 2019-02-07 New kangaroo fossil research published from Riversleigh, Australia, show Kangaroos learned to hop 20 million years ago, much earlier than first thought
  • 2019-02-12 Australian government loses historic vote on own bill with amendment to allow offshore sick refugees access to healthcare, first loss in 78 years
  • 2019-02-13 Flinders River swells to 37 miles wide (60km) creating its own weather system after intense flooding in Queensland, Australia
  • 2019-02-26 Catholic Cardinal George Pell convicted of child sexual abuse in Melbourne, Australia. As treasurer at the Vatican, the highest-ranking church official to be convicted; overturned in 2020
  • 2019-02-27 Doctors announce world's second known case of semi-identical twins, a boy and girl from Brisbane, Australia
  • 2019-03-13 Australian Catholic Cardinal George Pell is sentenced to 6 years in prison for sexual abuse in Australia; conviction overturned in 2020
  • 2019-03-15 Terrorist attack on two mosques by a right-wing Australian gunman kills 51 and wounds 50 in Christchurch, New Zealand
  • 2019-03-19 Image of Australian rules footballer Tayla Harris attacked by internet trolls and controversially removed before being reinstated
  • 2019-04-10 First home delivery service by drone begins in Canberra, Australia by Wing, part of Google's Alphabet company
  • 2019-04-13 Australian super-horse Winx ends extraordinary career with a 3rd Queen Elizabeth Stakes win in Sydney; 33 consecutive race wins, a world record 25 Group One victories and $26.4 million prize money
  • 2019-05-09 New Australian $50 bank note misspells responsibility as "responsibilty" on 46 million notes
  • 2019-05-18 Australian federal elections won by Scott Morrison's coalition government in a surprise result
  • 2019-05-23 Fifty children rescued from an international paedophile ring on the dark web in Thailand, Australia and the US by Interpol under Operation Blackwrist, main organizer sentenced to 146 years
  • 2019-05-26 Ken Wyatt becomes Australia's first Aboriginal minister in government as the minister for indigenous Australians
  • 2019-06-18 Sex-changing Australian bush tomato study published in journal "PhytoKeys" detailing how Solanum Plastisexum can change from male to female to hermaphrodite
  • 2019-08-05 Australian woman Kerry Robertson confirmed as the first person to use a new assisted dying law to end her life a month earlier in Victoria
  • 2019-08-30 Outlook for the Great Barrier Reef downgraded to very poor according to official Australian report
  • 2019-09-09 Australia experiences its earliest and most severe start to the fire season after fighting dozens of bushfires in Queensland and New South Wales
  • 2019-09-20 Australian PM Scott Morrison welcomed for week-long visit at the White House by US President Donald Trump
  • 2019-09-25 Australia's Capital Territory becomes the 1st state in Australia to legalize recreational marijuana
  • 2019-09-26 Abortion is decriminalized in New South Wales, the last remaining Australian state to do so
  • 2019-10-21 Australia's biggest newspapers all blank out their front pages in protest against press restrictions
  • 2019-11-09 Unprecedented 70 bush fires in New South Wales, Australia, destroys 100 homes killing three people with seven missing
  • 2019-11-11 More than 120 bush fires in Australia cause the country to declare state of emergency in two states with a catastrophic threat issued for Sydney region
  • 2019-11-25 First defamation case in Australia by a sitting MP won by Sarah Hanson-Green over Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm, after he made sexist slurs against her
  • 2019-12-10 Australian car maker Holden announces an end to Commodore production after 41 years
  • 2019-12-10 Sydney, Australia, blanketed in smoke from nearby bush fires pushing air quality to 11 times hazardous levels
  • 2019-12-17 Australia has its hottest day ever with average temperature of 40.9°C across the country
  • 2019-12-19 Australian state of New South Wales announces 7-day state of emergency amid extreme heat and over 100 bushfires that have burnt for two months
  • 2020-01-04 Australian bushfires death toll reaches 23 as PM Scott Morrison announces national defense force will be employed to help fight the more than 200 fires, amid criticism of his leadership
  • 2020-01-13 Oldest material existing on earth at 7.5 billion years old revealed by scientists studying the Murchison meteorite that fell to earth in Australia in 1960s
  • 2020-01-21 World's oldest asteroid impact at 2.2 billion years old found in Yarrabubba, Western Australia, may have ended an ice age, reported in "Nature Communications"
  • 2020-02-10 More than 30 bushfires put out by heaviest rainfall for 30 years in New South Wales, Australia, helping end one of the worst bushfire seasons ever, 46 million acres burnt, over 1 billion animals killed, 34 people dead
  • 2020-03-04 New study confirms human-caused climate change did make the 2020 Australian bushfire season worse, published by World Weather Attribution
  • 2020-03-20 Smoke from Australian bushfires killed more people than the fires - 417 vs 33 according to new study published in "Medical Journal of Australia"
  • 2020-04-07 Australia's highest court overturns the child sexual abuse conviction of Catholic Cardinal George Pell
  • 2020-06-19 Australian government and companies suffer a months-long state-based cyber attack according to PM Scott Morrison
  • 2020-06-25 Australian airline Qantas announces it is cutting 6,000 jobs, a fifth of its workforce because of the pandemic
  • 2020-07-01 Australian state of Melbourne re-imposes a COVID-19 lockdown on 36 Melbourne suburbs affecting 300,000 people
  • 2020-07-08 Australian city of Melbourne goes back into lockdown for six weeks after second outbreak of 700 active cases
  • 2020-08-02 Australian state of Victoria announces state of disaster and imposes further lockdown measures after spike in COVID-19 cases
  • 2020-08-27 Australian terrorist Brenton Tarrant sentenced to life without parole, for the killing of 51 mosque worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand, 1st time the country imposes the sentence [1]
  • 2020-09-02 Australia officially enters recession for the first time in almost 3 decades with GDP falling 7% (April-June)
  • 2020-09-06 Premier Daniel Andrews announces roadmap out of restrictions for the Australian state of Victoria, but extends lockdown till September 28
  • 2020-09-26 108 pilot whales survive, while 350 die in Australia's largest mass stranding at Macquarie Harbour, Tasmania
  • 2020-10-28 New coral reef 500m (1,640ft) high, taller than the Empire State Building, discovered north of Australia's Great Barrier Reef
  • 2020-10-29 South Australian government axes the Adelaide 500 from 2021 Supercars Championship due to COVID-19 and falling revenue
  • 2020-11-03 Australia's Melbourne Cup won by Twilight Payment
  • 2020-11-19 Inquiry find "credible evidence" elite Australian troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan civilians
  • 2020-11-30 Australia condemns doctored photo of Australian soldier threatening Afghan child with knife on Chinese official's Twitter, marking new low in the two countries relationship
  • 2020-12-06 Japanese space capsule Hayabusa-2 lands safely back on earth in Australia, carrying first significant rock samples from an asteroid, the Ryugu
  • 2020-12-07 Australian states celebrate "Freedom Day" easing COVID-19 restrictions in Victoria and New South Wales
  • 2020-12-16 China blocks imports of coal, from Australia, the world's second biggest market for the world's biggest coal exporter
  • 2021-02-01 Wildfires ignite on the outskirts of Perth, Australia, forcing evacuations amid five-day COVID-19 lockdown
  • 2021-02-15 UK is the first European country to require travellers from COVID-19 'hotspots' to isolate in quarantine hotels, following other countries such as Australia, NZ and Singapore
  • 2021-02-18 Facebook blocks users in Australia from accessing news sites in response to proposed new laws for tech companies to pay to show news content
  • 2021-02-23 Discovery of oldest Australian rock art, a 17,300-year-old painting of a kangaroo in Kimberley region, Western Australia, published in "Nature Human Behaviour" [1]
  • 2021-03-03 Australian attorney general Christian Porter denies rape allegation involving 16-year-old girl in 1988
  • 2021-03-15 Mass March 4 Justice rallies held across Australia to protest against violence and discrimination towards women
  • 2021-04-11 Tropical cyclone Seroja makes landfall in Western Australia near the town of Kalbarri with winds up to 170km/h (105mph)
  • 2021-04-19 New Zealand and Australia open a travel bubble between the two countries after more than a year of border closures
  • 2021-04-30 Australia announces a ban on citizens returning from India, stranding 8,000 people, and making it a criminal offence to return, amid India's COVID-19 crisis - first democratic country to do so
  • 2021-06-09 One of the worst ever plagues of mice in New South Wales, Australia, prompts local government to commit $100 million in support to farmers [1] [2]
  • 2021-06-22 Unesco says Australia's Great Barrier Reef should be put on list of World Heritage Sites that are "in danger"
  • 2021-07-29 Chinese team of Yang Junxuan, Tang Muhan, Zhang Yufei & Li Bingjie smash 4 x 200m freestyle relay WR 7:40.33 at Tokyo Olympics; minor medallists USA and Australia also beat previous mark
  • 2021-09-15 US, UK and Australia announce trilateral security partnership Aukus, to counteract influence of China, including helping Australia build nuclear-powered submarines [1]
  • 2021-09-17 France recalls its ambassadors to the US and Australia, describing their new Aukus pact and the cancellation of a major military contract as a 'stab in the back'
  • 2021-09-30 Land, including world's oldest living rainforest, Daintree National Park (180 million yrs old) returned to the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people in Far North Queensland, Australia [1]
  • 2021-10-11 Australia's largest city Sydney ends its 107-day lockdown, with restrictions easing for fully vaccinated people
  • 2021-10-22 Australian city of Melbourne "world's most locked down city" exits its sixth lockdown after a total of 260 days
  • 2021-11-03 4-year old Cleo Smith found 18 days after she disappeared from a family tent, by police in Carnarvon, Western Australia
  • 2021-12-16 Six children die in a bouncy castle accident at a school in Devonport, Tasmasia, Australia
  • 2021-12-17 Discovery of the first true millipede (Eumillipes persephone) with 1,000 legs found down a drill hole in Western Australia published in "Scientific Reports" [1]
  • 2022-01-13 Australian equals hottest temperature on record of 50.7C (123.26F) in Onslow, Western Australia
  • 2022-01-25 Australian government buys the copyright to the Aboriginal flag designed by artist Harold Thomas for A$20 million (US$14m) [1]
  • 2022-02-11 Australia lists the koala as endangered for the first time in Queensland, New South Wales and ACT after a steep decline in numbers [1]
  • 2022-02-21 Australia's international border reopens to vaccinated tourists after 704 days, nearly two years [1]
  • 2022-02-26 'Rain bomb' due to a slow-moving low pressure trough begins major flooding in south-east Queensland, Australia, leaving at least seven people dead [1]
  • 2022-03-23 Brian Houston, Australian founder of megachurch Hillsong, resigns after an internal investigation finds he breached their code of conduct with two women
  • 2022-05-21 Australian General Election: Scott Morrison's Coalition government defeated after nine years in power, Anthony Albanese's Labor Party wins the most seats
  • 2022-05-24 Leaders of the Quad nations, America, Australia, India and Japan meet in Tokyo, focusing on Chinese aggressions in the Indo-Pacific [1]
  • 2022-06-07 New study reveals Shark Bay sea grass, off Western Australia, may be world's largest plant, covering 77 square miles of sea floor, having cloned itself for 4,500 years [1]
  • 2022-06-27 First rocket launch in Australia for 25 years and NASA's first commercial spaceport outside the US for sub-orbital rocket from Arnhem Space Centre, Northern Territory [1]
  • 2022-07-05 Amid Greater Sydney's fourth major flood in 18 months, the Australian government declares a natural disaster as 45,000 people threatened with evacuation orders [1]
  • 2022-07-28 Final episodes of TV soap "Neighbours", after 37 years, screens in Australia [1]
  • 2022-08-16 Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reveals former PM Scott Morrison secretly appointed himself to five ministerial portfolios between March 2020 and May 2021 [1]
  • 2022-09-08 Australian government passes its first climate change legislation in a decade, including cutting emissions by at least 43% by 2030 [1]
  • 2022-10-24 Five-month-old bar-tailed godwit becomes a world record holder by flying 8,425 miles non-stop from Alaska to Australia in 11 days; bird departed Yukon Kuskokwim Delta in Alaska, US, on October 13 and touched down in Ansons Bay in Tasmania, Australia
  • 2022-11-14 Australian town of Eugowra experiences extreme flash flooding, with 2 deaths and 150 air-lifted to safety amid one-in-5,000-year flood event [1]
  • 2022-11-26 2,500 people pose naked for photographer Spencer Tunick on Australia's Bondi Beach to raise awareness of skin cancer [1]
  • 2022-12-05 Construction begins on world's biggest radio telescope - the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in South Africa and Australia with collection area of nearly 500,000 square meters. Built to test Einstein's theories and search for extraterrestrial life [1]
  • 2022-12-12 'Calculated and targeted execution' leaves three people shot and killed, including two police officers, with the three killers also killed in a six hour gun fight near Wieambilla, west of Brisbane, Australia [1]
  • 2023-01-12 Toadzilla, a large cane toad and unofficially the world's largest toad at 2.7kg, discovered in Conway National Park, Australia (as an invasive pest later euthanized) [1]
  • 2023-01-27 Urgent search announced for tiny radioactive capsule 6mmx8mm, which dropped out of a truck somewhere along 1,400 km journey in Western Australia [1]
  • 2023-02-17 Global LGBT festival WorldPride opens in Sydney, Australia, its first time in the Southern Hemisphere [1]
  • 2023-03-14 The US, UK and Australia unveil details of their AUKUS deal to create a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines to be based in the Indo Pacific region to counter Chinese military build-up [1]
  • 2023-04-13 Tropical Cyclone Ilsa makes landfall in remote western Australia, between De Grey and Pardoo Roadhouse, as a category five storm, setting a new sustained wind speed record of 218 kph (135 mph) [1]
  • 2023-04-20 Total solar eclipse in Exeter, Western Australia blocks out the sun for 58 seconds [1]
  • 2023-06-05 Australian woman Kathleen Folbigg is pardoned after 20 years in prison for the murder of her four children, after new genetic research found evidence of gene disorders in the children [1]
  • 2023-06-11 2nd ICC World Test Championship final, The Oval, London: Australia beats India by 209 runs to take it's first title; Nathan Lyon 4/41 and Scott Boland 3/46 combine to dominate Indian 2nd innings
  • 2023-06-26 Spin bowler Ashleigh Gardner takes 8-66 in England's 2nd innings for a match total of 12 as Australia beats England by 89 runs in the Ashes Test at Trent Bridge; best ever wicket haul in a Test by an Australian bowler
  • 2023-07-29 Infamous lunch in Leongatha, Australia, that results in three deaths through suspected mushroom poisoning. Cook Erin Patterson later arrested for murder. [1]
  • 2023-08-29 Parasite worm, alive and wriggling, found in a woman's brain for the first time in Canberra, Australia [1]

Murdoch Retires

2023-09-21 Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch at 92 announces he is retiring from the boards of Fox and News Corporation, leaving his son Lachlan in charge [1]

  • 2023-10-14 Australia votes against altering its constitution to give indigenous communities more rights in a referendum [1]

Biden Hosts Albanese

2023-10-25 US President Joe Biden hosts a state dinner at the White House Australian PM Anthony Albanese [1]

  • 2023-11-01 120 fires confirmed still burning across Australia's eastern states, burning through 111,000 hectares, with 58 homes lost around Tara, Queensland [1]
  • 2023-11-02 Australian Erin Patterson charged with three counts of murder and five of attempted murder through mushroom poisoning in high profile case [1]
  • 2023-11-07 Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing, re-establishing dialogue between the countries two leaders after a seven-year gap [1]
  • 2023-11-08 Landmark Australian High Court ruling says a stateless Rohingya man held in detention illegally, overturning 20-year precedent allowing some asylum seekers to be held indefinitely [1]
  • 2023-11-29 Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese makes national apology to people effected by the thalidomide morning sickness drug over 60 years ago [1]
  • 2023-12-18 Extreme rainfall and flooding after Cyclone Jasper breaks 100-year old weather records around Cairns and Daintree in northern Queensland, Australia [1]