2019 in Australia

The following lists events that happened during 2019 in Australia.

Incumbents

Scott Morrison

State and territory leaders

Governors and administrators

Events

January

  • 3 January – One man is killed and another is injured following a double stabbing at the Asia-Pacific headquarters of the Church of Scientology in the Sydney suburb of Chatswood.
  • 5 January – A far-right political rally held in Melbourne, marked by scuffles with police and counter-protesters, is attended by Independent Senator Fraser Anning, who admits to using tax-payer funded travel to attend the event.
  • 7 January – A mass fish die-off occurs on the Lower Darling River at Menindee Lakes. Up to 1 million fish, including endangered species, ultimately die in what is described as possibly the largest fish die-off in Australian history.
  • 24 January – Professor Tanya Monro is appointed Australia's next Chief Defence Scientist, the first woman in the position.
  • 29 January – The South Australian Murray Darling Basin Royal Commission report is released. The commission, which commenced in 2018, was critical of the Murray Darling Basin Plan and the Commonwealth Murray Darling Basin Authority.

February

March

  • 13 March – Cardinal George Pell is sentenced to six years in prison following his conviction over the sexual abuse of two choirboys.
  • 19 March – a few days prior to the state election, a video from September 2018 surfaced in which NSW Labor leader Michael Daley made comments about Asian immigration in Sydney. Daley said "Our young children will flee and who are they being replaced with? They are being replaced by young people from typically Asia with PhDs," and "So there's a transformation happening in Sydney now where our kids are moving out and foreigners are moving in and taking their jobs".
  • 23 March –

April

May

June

July

August

  • 13 August – 2019 Sydney stabbing attack
  • 16 August – Pro-Hong Kong protesters clash with pro-China supporters in Melbourne, while police are forced to intervene during similar confrontations in Sydney and Adelaide, following the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.
  • 21 August – The Victorian Court of Appeal dismisses George Pell's appeal to overturn his conviction for child sex offences.
  • 29 August – An attempt to deport the Sri Lankan Tamil Nadesalingam family asylum seekers was thwarted by a last-minute injunction, forcing the plane carrying the couple and their children out of Australia to land in Darwin.

September

  • 9 September – Homes and buildings, including the historic Binna Burra Lodge, are destroyed by a bushfire in Queensland's Scenic Rim region.

October

November

  • 8 November – Three people are killed and 150 homes are destroyed by a large number of bushfires burning across New South Wales and South East Queensland.
  • 11 November – A week-long State of Emergency is declared in New South Wales and the Australian Defence Force is put on alert amid mounting bushfire warnings.

December

Music, arts and literature

Sport

January

February

March

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

Deaths

January

Paul Neville
Annalise Braakensiek

February

John Herron

March

Gordon McIntosh
Peter Coleman

April

Suzanne Twelftree
Eric Kent
Les Murray

May

Bob Hawke
Allan Edwards

June

Max Kay

July

Bruce Wallrodt
Neil Davey
Richard Carter
Margaret Fulton

August

Jim Forbes
Polly Farmer
Tim Fischer

September

Danny Frawley
Penny Whetton

October

November

Kieran Modra
Ken Kavanagh
Sam Watson

December

John Cain Jr.

See also

References

Uses material from the Wikipedia article 2019 in Australia, released under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.