1908 in Australia

Incumbents

• Monarch – Edward VII
• Governor-General – Henry Northcote, 1st Baron Northcote, then William Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley
• Prime Minister – Alfred Deakin, then Andrew Fisher
• Chief Justice – Samuel Griffith

  State premiers

• Premier of New South Wales – Charles Wade
• Premier of South Australia – Thomas Price
• Premier of Queensland – Robert Philp, then William Kidston
• Premier of Tasmania – John Evans
• Premier of Western Australia – Newton Moore
• Premier of Victoria – Thomas Bent

  State governors

• Governor of New South Wales – Admiral Sir Harry Rawson
• Governor of South Australia – Sir George Ruvthen Le Hunte
• Governor of Queensland – Frederic Thesiger, 3rd Baron Chelmsford
• Governor of Tasmania – Sir Gerald Strickland
• Governor of Western Australia – Admiral Sir Frederick Bedford
• Governor of Victoria – Major General Sir Reginald Talbot, then Sir Thomas Gibson-Carmichael

  Events

• 10 March – Australians Douglas Mawson and Edgeworth David accompanied by Ernest Shackleton and others are the first people to scale Mount Erebus in Antarctica.
• 30 March – Commonwealth Quarantine service came into operation and took over quarantine stations in every state.
• 20 April – 44 are killed and 400 injured in the Sunshine train disaster.
• 7 May – The coat of arms of Australia are granted Royal Assent.
• August – Boys in Australia first participated in the scouting movement, within a year of scouting starting in England
• 20 August – The Great White Fleet, the first visit by the U.S. Navy to Australia, arrives in Sydney.
• 8 October – The capital of Australia is chosen, settling a feud between rivals Melbourne and Sydney.
• 13 November – The Australian Labor Party withdraws its support for the minority government of Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, forcing his replacement with Andrew Fisher.
• 18 November – The Victorian government passes the Adult Suffrage Bill 1908, granting female suffrage for the first time.
• 15 December – The Invalid and Old Age Pensions Act is passed, which sets up a national aged pension scheme
• 29 December – A general election is held in Victoria. The government of Sir Thomas Bent is returned to power.

  Science and technology

• 1 January – The Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology formally commences operation.
• 3 February – first trans-Tasman radio transmission

  Arts and literature

• 16 May – The Commonwealth Literary Fund is established.
• Henry Handel Richardson's first novel Maurice Guest is published
• We of the Never Never by Mrs Aeneas Gunn is published
• The poem My Country by Dorothea Mackellar first published

  Film

• 2 February – The Limelight Department of the Salvation Army films Grand Memorial Service, a film of the funeral of Major Kenneth McLeod, the Director of the Bayswater Boys' Home. The funeral was held at the Kew Cemetery in Melbourne.

  Sport

• 31 January – Victoria wins the 1907–08 Sheffield Shield.
• 11 February – Australia regains The Ashes with a 308 run victory over England.
• 20 April – The first New South Wales Rugby League premiership begins in Sydney.
• July - The 1908 Interstate rugby league series sees the first ever matches between New South Wales and Queensland
• 29 August – South Sydney win the grand final to become the first NSWRFL premiers
• 3 November – Lord Nolan wins the Melbourne Cup.
• At the 1908 Summer Olympics held in London, Australia forms a team with New Zealand and competes as Australasia. They win a gold medal for rugby football, a silver medal for middleweight boxing, and in swimming a silver medal for men's 400-metre freestyle and bronze medal for men's 1500 metre freestyle – both won by Frank Beaurepaire.
• Australia's national rugby league team sets sail for England on the 1908–09 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain.

  Births

• 23 February – William McMahon, 20th Prime Minister of Australia
• 15 May – Kevin Ellis, NSW politician
• 20 May – Henry Bolte, Premier of Victoria
• 10 July – John Armstrong, ALP senator
• 5 August – Harold Holt, 17th Prime Minister of Australia
• 10 August – Rica Erickson, Australian botanist
• 26 August – Alexandra Hasluck, author and social historian
• 27 August – Donald Bradman, cricketer
• 10 September – Angus Bethune, Premier of Tasmania
• 17 October – Wally Prigg, rugby league player
• 3 November – Eddie Scarf, boxer and wrestler

  Deaths

• 14 February – David Syme, newspaper proprietor
• 29 February – John Hope, 7th Earl of Hopetoun, 1st Governor-General of Australia
• 7 March – Alfred William Howitt, anthropologist, explorer, and naturalist
• 23 March – Alexander Paterson, Queensland politician
• 11 May – Charles Kingston, 20th Premier of South Australia
• 20 October – Vaiben Louis Solomon, 21st Premier of South Australia
• 14 November – Ernest Favenc, explorer, journalist and author
• 18 November – Pierce Galliard Smith, cleric