2006 in Australia

Incumbents

Federal government

• Monarch - Queen Elizabeth II
• Governor General - Michael Jeffery

  Cabinet

• Prime Minister - John Howard
• Deputy Prime Minister - Mark Vaile
• Minister for Transport and Regional Services - Mark Vaille
• Treasurer - Peter Costello
• Minister for Trade - Mark Vaile
• Minister for Foreign Affairs - Alexander Downer
• Minister for Defence - Robert Hill, to Brendan Nelson
• Minister for Finance and Administration - Nick Minchin
• Minister for Health and Ageing - Tony Abbott
• Attorney General - Philip Ruddock
• Minister for the Environment and Heritage - Ian Campbell
• Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts - Helen Coonan
• Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry - Peter McGauran
• Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs - Amanda Vanstone
• Minister for Education, Science and Training - Julie Bishop
• Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs - Kay Patterson, to Mal Brough
• Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources - Ian Macfarlane
• Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations - Kevin Andrews

  Other Ministers

• Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation - Ian Macdonald, to Eric Abetz
• Minister for the Arts and Sport - Rod Kemp
• Minister for Human Services - Joe Hockey
• Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer - Mal Brough, then Peter Dutton
• Special Minister of State - Eric Abetz, then Gary Nairn
• Minister for Justice and Customs - Chris Ellison
• Minister for Veterans' Affairs - De-Anne Kelly, to Bruce Billson
• Minister for Community Services - John Cobb
• Minister for Ageing - Julie Bishop, to Santo Santoro
• Minister for Employment Services - Fran Bailey
• Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads - Jim Lloyd
• Minister for Vocational and Technical Education: Gary Hardgrave
• Minister for Workforce Participation: Peter Dutton

  Members of Parliament

Opposition leaders

• Australian Labor Party - Kim Beazley to Kevin Rudd
• Australian Greens - Bob Brown
• Australian Democrats - Lyn Allison
• Family First - Steve Fielding

  High Court justices

• Chief Justice: Anthony Murray Gleeson
• William Gummow
• Michael Kirby
• Kenneth Hayne
• Ian Callinan
• Dyson Heydon
• Susan Crennan

  Other

• Speaker of the House of Representatives - David Hawker
• President of the Senate - Paul Calvert
• Chairman of the Reserve Bank of Australia - Ian Macfarlane, to Glenn Stevens
• Chief of the Australian Defence Force - Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, AO

  States

Premiers

• Premier of New South Wales - Morris Iemma
• Premier of South Australia - Mike Rann
• Premier of Queensland - Peter Beattie
• Premier of Tasmania - Paul Lennon
• Premier of Western Australia - Geoff Gallop, to Alan Carpenter
• Premier of Victoria - Steve Bracks
• Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory - Jon Stanhope
• Chief Minister of the Northern Territory - Clare Martin

  Governors

• Governor of New South Wales - Marie Bashir
• Governor of South Australia - Marjorie Jackson-Nelson
• Governor of Queensland - Quentin Bryce
• Governor of Tasmania - William Cox
• Governor of Western Australia - John Sanderson, to Ken Michael
• Governor of Victoria - John Landy, to David de Kretser
• Administrator of the Northern Territory - Ted Egan

  Lord Mayors

• Adelaide - Michael Harbison
• Brisbane - Campbell Newman
• Darwin - Peter Adamson
• Hobart - Rob Valentine
• Melbourne - John So
• Perth - Peter Nattrass
• Sydney - Clover Moore

  Religious leaders

• Roman Catholic Church
• *Roman Catholic Bishop of Adelaide - Archbishop Philip Wilson
• *Roman Catholic Bishop of Brisbane - Archbishop John Bathersby
• *Roman Catholic Bishop of Hobart - Archbishop Adrian Doyle
• *Roman Catholic Bishop of Melbourne - Archbishop Denis Hart
• *Roman Catholic Bishop of Perth - Archbishop Barry Hickey
• *Roman Catholic Bishop of Sydney - Cardinal Archbishop George Pell
• Uniting Church in Australia
• *President of the Uniting Church in Australia - Reverend Dean Drayton
• Anglican Church of Australia
• *Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia - Archbishop Phillip Aspinall
• *Anglican Bishop of Adelaide - Archbishop Jeffrey Driver
• *Anglican Bishop of Brisbane - Archbishop Phillip Aspinall
• *Anglican Bishop of Melbourne - Archbishop Peter Watson
• *Anglican Bishop of Perth - Archbishop Roger Herft
• *Anglican Bishop of Sydney - Archbishop Peter Jensen

  Events

January

• 1 January – Bushfires grip parts of the Central Coast and the Riverina in New South Wales and the Wimmera in Victoria after one of the hottest New Years Days on record, with the Sydney CBD reaching 45 °C.
• 2 January – A skydiving plane crash near Willowbank in Queensland claims five lives.
• 9 January – Communities in the Pilbara region of Western Australia are evacuated due to Tropical Cyclone Clare.
• 10 January – Six Australians die when a bus flips over in Egypt.
• 16 January – Premier of Western Australia Geoff Gallop resigns, citing clinical depression as the reason.
• 22–29 January – Bushfires affect several towns in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. Three volunteer firefighters are killed.
• 24 January – Alan Carpenter replaces Gallop as Premier of Western Australia.

  February

• 18 February – Six teenagers are killed and another is injured in a hit and run accident in Cardross, Victoria, near Mildura.

  March

• 5 March - Sydney FC win the inaugural A-League Grand Final, beating Central Coast Mariners 1-0.
• 18 March – South Australia and Tasmania vote in parliamentary state elections. Both ALP governments are re-elected.
• 20 March – Tropical Cyclone Larry strikes Innisfail and Cairns in Far North Queensland. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, no-one is killed.
• 23 March – Microsoft releases the Xbox 360 games console in Australia.
• 27 March – The WorkChoices industrial relations reforms come into effect.

  April

• 7 April – John Landy retires as Governor of Victoria, and is succeeded by David de Kretser.
• 18 April – More than 19 AFP officers are injured as the capital of the Solomon Islands, Honiara, erupts into rioting. In response to this, the Prime Minister of Australia orders an Army deployment of 220 troops.
• 21 April – Private Jacob Kovco becomes the first casualty of Australia's involvement in the Iraq campaign. The reason given initially was that his gun had accidentally discharged while cleaning his gun, although this was later retracted. It was later stated that he had accidentally shot himself while skylarking with his pistol.
• 25 April – A small earthquake causes a rock fall in a gold mine in Beaconsfield, Tasmania. Eleven miners come out, but three are left inside. One of them is found dead on 28 April. The other two are freed on 9 May.
• 26 April – The body of Bosnian civilian contractor Juso Sinanovic is taken to Australia instead of the body of Private Kovco. Private Kovco's body later arrived in Australia on 29 April.

  May

• 16 May – Bill Stefaniak topples Brendan Smyth as leader of the ACT Liberal Party.
• 25 May – Australian troops are redeployed to East Timor after fresh outbreaks of violence.

  June

• 2 June – The A$1.4 billion sale of the Myer department store chain to Newbridge Capital and the Myer family is completed.

  July

• 9 July – Revelations are published in News Limited newspapers that, in 1994, John Howard made a secret deal with Peter Costello to hand over the leadership of the Liberal Party to him after having served two terms in office as Prime Minister.
• 17 July - Australia's largest recorded inundation caused by a tsunami hits the Western Australian coast at Steep Point.
• 29 July – In the face of a worsening water supply crisis, a referendum is held in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia's second largest inland city, on the issue of using water recycled from the city's sewerage as a source of drinking water. The acrimonious campaign and emotional debate were watched closely nationwide as most other Australian cities raise water restrictions in the face of record low dam and river levels.

  August

• 8 August – night.
• 18 August – US private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. launches a $16 billion takeover bid for Coles Group. KKR later withdraw their offer.

  September

• 4 September – Steve Irwin dies in an accident when he is struck in the heart by a stingray barb off Queensland's coast.
• 8 September – Peter Brock is killed in a smash when his rally car skids off a bend and hits a tree.
• 9 September – Peter Beattie is re-elected Queensland premier at an early state election.
• 26 September – Seven people are killed in a horror road smash outside the Victoria town of Donald.

  October

• After some of the hottest October days on record, bushfires ravage parts of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.
• 18 October – Linda Lavarch resigns as Queensland's Attorney-General to seek treatment for depression, after it is revealed she refused a deal to return Jayant Patel to Australia to face criminal charges.
• 20 October – Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation company buys a 7.5 per cent stake in its main competitor, John Fairfax Holdings.
• 25 October – New South Wales Police minister Carl Scully is sacked after it is shown that he had misled parliament on two occasions about the 2005 Cronulla riots.
• 25 October – Comments that Sheikh Taj El-Din Hilaly made about women who dressed immodestly being responsible for rape are made public in The Australian. The Sheik is forced to retract such comments on 26 October.

  November

• 11 November – Belinda Emmett, a TV personality and wife of Rove McManus, dies, after a battle with breast cancer.
• 22 November – Sydney is covered in smoke after raging fires in the Blue Mountains.
• 25 November – Steve Bracks is re-elected Victorian premier at the state election.
• 29 November – One SAS soldier and the helicopter captain are dead and eight more rescued when a Blackhawk helicopter hits the deck of HMAS Kanimbla and crashes into waters off the coast of Fiji.
• 30 November – Greg Page, the founding member and lead singer of Australia's famous children's band The Wiggles, announced his retirement due to orthostatic intolerance. He handed his yellow skivvy to Sam Moran.

  December

• 4 December – Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard successfully challenge Kim Beazley and Jenny Macklin in a caucus ballot for leadership and deputy leadership of the Australian Labor Party.
• 18 December – 16-year-old girl Stacey Mitchell is murdered by lesbian couple Jessica Stasinowsky and Valerie Parashumti. She was bludgeoned with a concrete block and strangled with a chain, with her corpse found in a wheelie bin.
• The Gippsland region of Victoria and Eastern Tasmania come under threat as a result of bushfires.

  Non-specific dates

• Investigation into AWB Limited's role in the Oil-for-Food Programme, sometimes referred to as Wheatgate or Oil for wheat. The official inquiry states that AWB directors did know about the kickback payments as early as 2001 and that government ministers did not know about the kickbacks, although this was not in their brief.

  Arts and literature

• 22 June – Roger McDonald wins the Miles Franklin Award for The Ballad of Desmond Kale.
• Gregory Day is awarded the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for The Patron Saint of Eels.
• Kate Grenville's novel The Secret River wins the Christina Stead Prize for fiction.
• Peter Carey's novel wins the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction.

  Film

• Ten Canoes, the first full-length feature film made entirely in an Australian Aboriginal language, wins a special jury prize at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.
• Happy Feet becomes the country's biggest earning film

  Television

• 1 January – Mildura Digital Television, a joint venture between WIN Television Mildura & Prime Television, goes on air in the Mildura area of Victoria as a Network Ten digital-only affiliate.
• 2 January – The Seven and Ten Networks outbid Channel Nine and win the rights to broadcast the AFL from 2007–2011 for a record $780 million. Also around this time, Seven announce that they have won the rights to broadcast the V8 Supercars from 2007 to 2014.
• 30 January – Channel Nine launches a new logo, dropping the famous dots and replacing it with a stand-alone nine in a blue box.
• February 2006 – Wheel of Fortune returns and starts in 2006. Larry Emdur & Laura Csortan will definitely host WOF in a partnership instead of one. On the very first episode in 2006, the car was won! The final edition of the version was screened on 28 July.
• 9 February – It is announced that Eddie McGuire will become Channel Nine's new CEO.
• 13 February – Network Ten's motto, Seriously... becomes Seriously Ten, and has its new look Ten Watermark on the bottom right of the TV screens
• 17 February – ABC premiered The Chaser's War on Everything
• 20 February – Television Sydney formally launches after three months of testing, giving Sydney community television for the first time in almost two years.
• 21 May – Brant Webb & Todd Russell speak to A Current Affair's new host Tracy Grimshaw about their time underground in Beaconsfield in a 2-hour special called The Great Escape. They are paid a reported $2.6 million by Channel Nine for the right to talk to them.
• 4 June – After 12 years & a record-breaking 510 episodes, the last episode of the Seven Network show Blue Heelers goes to air.
• 14 September – Today Tonight host Naomi Robson is deported from Indonesia after doing a story on a West Papuan boy called Wa Wa who, supposedly, was going to be eaten by cannibals. This sparks a war of words between Seven & Nine, who ran the original story on Wa Wa in May on 60 Minutes. Naomi presents her final edition of Today Tonight on 1 December.
• 16 September – Television in Australia turns 50. The next day, this is commemorated with a live TV special from Star City, Sydney on the Seven Network.
• 29 September – Backyard Blitz finishes its 6-year run on the Nine Network. Jamie Durie leaves Nine and signs up with the Seven Network, the next year, he dances his way on Dancing with the Stars.
• 30 September – The Fox Footy Channel ceases broadcasting. It is replaced by Fox Sports 3 & Fox Sports News on 1 October.
• 18 October – PBL announces the sale of 50% of the Nine Network, including its 50% stake in ninemsn & ACP to CVC Asia Pacific for $4.5 billion.
• 26 November – Irishman Damien Leith defeats 17-year-old Jessica Mauboy to win the title of Australian Idol 2006 at the Sydney Opera House.
• 27 November – The last ever episode of The Glass House goes to air on ABC TV.
• 10 December – Network Ten broadcasts the V8 Supercars for the final-ever time, before handing the television right to the Seven Network. Ten later revived the V8 Supercars coverage 9 years later.

  Sport

• 1 January – Football Federation Australia officially becomes a member of the Asian Football Confederation.
• 2 February – First day of the Australian Track & Field Championships for the 2005–2006 season, which are held at the Sydney Olympic Park in Homebush. The relays were conducted at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 19 February 2006.
• 16 February – Dale Begg-Smith wins Winter Olympic gold in the men's moguls at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.
• 23 February – Alisa Camplin adds to her gold in Salt Lake City with a bronze in the women's aerials.
• 28 February – Melbourne Tigers defeat Sydney Kings 88–83 in Game 3 of a series sweep in the NBL Grand Final series.
• 5 March – Sydney FC defeats the Central Coast Mariners 1–0 to win the inaugural A-League championship.
• 5 March – Australians Troy Corser and eventual World Champion Troy Bayliss win the two races making up the Australian Superbike Grand Prix at Phillip Island.
• 15 March-26 March – The 2006 Commonwealth Games take place in Melbourne. Australia finishes on top of the medal tally for the fifth consecutive time & wins a record 221 medals-84 gold, 69 silver & 68 bronze.
• 28 March – Queensland defeats Victoria to win the Pura Cup.
• 2 April – Eventual 2006 World Champion, Fernando Alonso takes victory for Renault F1 in the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park, Melbourne.
• 30 April – St Kilda players & umpires fail to hear the final siren. St Kilda scores behind after siren has gone, resulting in the match being a draw. This is later overturned on an appeal to the AFL commission & Fremantle is awarded the four points.
• 17 May – At Aussie Stadium, Anthony Mundine defeats Danny Green in their long-awaited bout.
• 9 June-9 July – The Socceroos participate in the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany for the first time since 1974. They are drawn in Group F along with Brazil, Croatia & Japan. They come second in their group & face off against Italy. They lose to them 1–0 as a result of a controversial penalty awarded in the dying seconds of the match.
• 2 July – Lee Troop wins the men's national marathon title, clocking 2:14:13 in Brisbane, while Jennifer Gillard claims the women's title in 2:41:06.
• 5 July - The 2006 State of Origin series is won by Queensland who defeated New South Wales 16–14 in the third and deciding game at Melbourne's Telstra Dome before a crowd of 54,833. The Wally Lewis Medal for player of the series was awarded to Queensland's Darren Lockyer.
• 5 September - The 2006 Dally M Awards are held at Sydney Town Hall and the Dally M Medal for player of the year is presented by prime minister John Howard to Cameron Smith of the Melbourne Storm.
• 8 September – Peter Brock dies in a smash while driving in the Targa West rally
• 17 September – Marco Melandri wins the 2006 Australian motorcycle Grand Prix held at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit. Australian Chris Vermeulen was second.
• 30 September – In a rematch of the previous year's AFL Grand Final, the West Coast Eagles defeat the Sydney Swans to take out the 110th VFL/AFL premiership. It is the first time since 1966 that the Grand Final has been decided by a margin of one point.
• 1 October – The 2006 NRL grand final is won by the Brisbane Broncos who defeated the Melbourne Storm 15–8 before a crowd of 79,609 at Sydney's Telstra Stadium. The Clive Churchill Medal was awarded to Brisbane's Shaun Berrigan. It is also the first time a team from New South Wales does not feature in the grand final.
• 8 October – Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup win the 2006 Bathurst 1000 race for Triple Eight Race Engineering, Ford's first win since 1998. They are the inaugural winners of the Peter Brock Trophy.
• 28 October – Fields of Omagh ridden by Craig Williams wins the Cox Plate for the second time.
• 29 October – Mikko Hirvonen, and co-driver Jarmo Lehtinen, driving a Ford Focus win the last Rally Australia to be held in Western Australia after 19 years of the rally.
• 7 November – Delta Blues wins the 2006 Melbourne Cup.
• 21 November – Ian Thorpe announces his retirement from competitive swimming.
• 25 November - The 2006 Rugby League Tri-Nations tournament is won by Australia, who defeated New Zealand 16–12 in the final at Sydney's Aussie Stadium before a crowd of 27,325.
• 18 December – Australia wins the Third Ashes Test by 206 runs at the WACA Ground in Perth, claiming The Ashes.
• 21 December – Shane Warne announces that he will retire from cricket after the Fifth Ashes Test. Glenn McGrath announces he will do likewise after the 2007 Cricket World Cup on 23 December.

  Births

• 22 September - Luke Borusiewicz, murder victim

  Deaths

• 1 January – Dawn Lake, 78, entertainer and widow of Bobby Limb
• 3 January – Steve Rogers, 51, Cronulla rugby league great
• 5 January – Sophie Heathcote, 33, actress
• 9 January – Andy Caldecott, 41, motorcyclist
• 31 January – Owen Abrahams, 72, Australian rules footballer
• 9 March – Harry Seidler, 82, architect
• 28 March – Pro Hart, 77, artist
• 24 April – Jimmy Sharman jnr, 94, boxing troupe impresario
• 6 May – Grant McLennan, 48, musician
• 7 May – Richard Carleton, 62, journalist
• 24 May – John Wheeldon, 76, ALP politician
• 15 August - Rick Bourke, 52, rugby league player
• 18 August - Ken Kearney, 82, rugby league footballer and coach
• 28 August – Don Chipp, 81, Democrats politician
• 4 September
• * Steve Irwin, 44, environmentalist & documentarian
• * Colin Thiele, 85, author
• 8 September – Peter Brock, 61, motor racing driver
• 11 September – Nancy Borlase, 92, artist
• 15 September – Abe Saffron, 86, notorious Sydney nightclub owner and suspected underworld figure
• 23 September - Brodie Panlock, 19, her suicide forced a change in Victorian Legislation as the result of workplace bullying
• 3 October – Peter Norman, 64, athlete
• 2 November – Wally Foreman, 58, sports commentator
• 11 November – Belinda Emmett, 32, actress
• 27 November – Alan "Fluff" Freeman, 79, Australian-born UK radio personality
• 21 December - Scobie Breasley, 92, jockey and trainer
• 25 December – Sir Bob Cotton, 91, Liberal politician