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2014 in Australia

overview of Australia-related events during the year of 2014

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ15509116
Source-derived summary

The following lists events that happened during 2014 in Australia.

Incumbents

Monarch – Elizabeth II

Governor-General – (Dame) Quentin Bryce (until 28 March), then Sir Peter Cosgrove

Prime Minister – Tony Abbott

Deputy Prime Minister – Warren Truss

Opposition Leader – Bill Shorten

Chief Justice – Robert French

State and territory leaders

Premier of New South Wales – Barry O'Farrell (until 17 April), then Mike Baird

Opposition Leader – John Robertson (until 23 December)

Premier of Queensland – Campbell Newman

Opposition Leader – Annastacia Palaszczuk

Premier of South Australia – Jay Weatherill

Opposition Leader – Steven Marshall

Premier of Tasmania – Lara Giddings (until 31 March), then Will Hodgman

Opposition Leader – Will Hodgman (until 31 March), then Bryan Green

Premier of Victoria – Denis Napthine (until 4 December), then Daniel Andrews

Opposition Leader – Daniel Andrews (until 4 December), then Matthew Guy

Premier of Western Australia – Colin Barnett

Opposition Leader – Mark McGowan

Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory – Katy Gallagher (until 11 December), then Andrew Barr

Opposition Leader – Jeremy Hanson

Chief Minister of the Northern Territory – Adam Giles

Opposition Leader – Delia Lawrie

Chief Minister of Norfolk Island – Lisle Snell

Governors and administrators

Governor of New South Wales – (Dame) Marie Bashir (until 1 October), then David Hurley

Governor of Queensland – Penelope Wensley (until 29 July), then Paul de Jersey

Governor of South Australia – Kevin Scarce (until 7 August), then Hieu Van Le (from 1 September)

Governor of Tasmania – Peter Underwood (until 7 July), then Kate Warner (from 10 December)

Governor of Victoria – Alex Chernov

Governor of Western Australia – Malcolm McCusker (until 30 June), then Kerry Sanderson

Administrator of the Australian Indian Ocean Territories – Jon Stanhope (until 5 October), then Barry Haase

Administrator of Norfolk Island – Neil Pope (until 30 June), then Gary Hardgrave

Administrator of the Northern Territory – Sally Thomas (until 10 November), then John Hardy

Events

January

1 January – The University of Ballarat merges with the Gippsland campus of Monash University to form, Federation University Australia.

4 January – Stradbroke Island suffers bushfires which burn out over 8,500 hectares (21,004 acres) of bushland.

12–15 January – Perth Hills Fire; A total of 55 homes were razed, 1 fatality, and a damage bill in excess of $13 million.

15–20 January – Grampians Fire – A fire starts as a result of lightning strikes in the northern Grampians National Park on 15 January. Extreme fire conditions on 17 January saw the fire grow in size to over 50,000 hectares (123,553 acres). The fire was brought under control on 18 January. By the time the fire is contained on 20 January, it had burnt out 55,000 hectares (135,908 acres) hectares. The estimated losses included 90 structures, 32 homes and 3000 sheep.

20 January – New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell uses special legislation to cancel three coal licences worth hundreds of millions of dollars issued by corrupt former Labor minister Ian Macdonald and deny the companies that own them any compensation.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “2014 in Australia” as overview of Australia-related events during the year of 2014. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Australia, overview and Australia-related.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2014—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Australia, overview and Australia-related providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “2014 in Australia”, the useful work is to connect “overview of Australia-related events during the year of 2014” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15509116. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2014.

Critical limits

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from 2014 in Australia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.