2014 in Australia
overview of Australia-related events during the year of 2014

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.
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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.