1902 in Australia

Incumbents

• Monarch – Edward VII
• Governor-General – John Hope, 7th Earl of Hopetoun
• Prime Minister – Edmund Barton

  State premiers

• Premier of New South Wales – John See
• Premier of South Australia – John Jenkins
• Premier of Queensland – Robert Philp
• Premier of Tasmania – Elliott Lewis
• Premier of Western Australia – George Leake, then Walter James
• Premier of Victoria – Alexander Peacock, then William Irvine

  State governors

• Governor of New South Wales – Admiral Harry Rawson
• Governor of South Australia – Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson
• Governor of Queensland – Major General Sir Herbert Chermside
• Governor of Tasmania – Captain Sir Arthur Havelock
• Governor of Western Australia – Sir Arthur Lawley
• Governor of Victoria – Sir George Clarke

  Events

• 7 February – The Waterside Workers Federation is formed.
• April – Averaged over Australia, the driest month on record with only. Over half the continent was absolutely rainless and less than 3 percent outside Tasmania had more than.
• 5 May – The Commonwealth Public Service Act creates Australia's Public Service.
• 31 May – The Second Boer War, in which Australia is involved, ends.
• 12 June – The Commonwealth Franchise Act granted most Australian women the right to vote and stand in federal elections.
• 31 July – A coal gas explosion kills 96 in the Mount Kembla mining disaster
• 1 August – New Idea magazine is first published.
• 3 November – Postmaster-General James Drake opens a submarine telegraph cable from Southport, Queensland to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, completing a British Empire communications line.
• 18 December – The mayors of Sydney and Melbourne are conferred the title of Lord Mayor
• 26 December – Brisbane is declared a city.
• 26 December – Ada Evans becomes the first female law graduate in Australia.
• As a culmination of the Federation Drought, this was by raw totals the driest calendar year averaged over Australia since 1890 with only .

  Unknown dates

• The world's first successful pyritic smelting takes place at Mount Lyell, Tasmania

  Arts and literature

• 17 September – Opera singer Nellie Melba arrives in Brisbane for her first Australian tour after 16 years in Europe.
• James White wins the Wynne Prize with his bronze sculpture ''In Defence of the Flat''

  Sport

• 27 September – Collingwood wins the 1902 VFL grand final, defeating Essendon 9.6 to 3.9 at the first final to be held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before a record crowd of 35,000.
• 11 November – The Victory wins the Melbourne Cup
• New South Wales wins the Sheffield Shield

  Births

• 15 January – Dan Dempsey, rugby league footballer
• 25 February – Vince Gair, politician
• 2 May – Alan Marshall, writer
• 22 May – Leslie Herron, Chief Justice of NSW
• 12 July – Vic Armbruster, rugby league footballer
• 17 July – Christina Stead, writer
• 28 July – Albert Namatjira, painter

  Deaths

• 27 February – Breaker Morant, convicted military officer, bush poet and drover
• 6 March – Frederick William Piesse, Tasmanian politician
• 24 June – George Leake, 3rd Premier of Western Australia