1974 in Australia


The following lists events that happened during 1974 in Australia.

Incumbents

State and territory leaders

Governors and administrators

Events

January

February

  • 3 February – A riot of 250 inmates erupts at Bathurst Gaol – at least nine prisoners are shot and a large part of the jail is destroyed by fire.
  • 4 February –
  • *The Federal Minister for Labour, Mr Cameron, meets officials of the Australian Bank Officials Association in Melbourne in an effort to break the deadlock in the bank dispute. The association decides to lift is week-old ban on handling commercial cheques.
  • *Federal Treasurer, Frank Crean, estimates that flood damage in Queensland will probably exceed $50 million.
  • *Prime Minister Gough Whitlam holds talks in Vientiane with Laotian Prime Minister Prince Souvanna Phouma and says that all foreign forces should be withdrawn from the Indo-China region by the Great Powers. He also says the United States should stop flying military hardware into Saigon.
  • 6 February –
  • *High tides and heavy seas cause flooding and damage to homes and other buildings on the Queensland Gold and Sunshine Coasts and the New South Wales North Coast. Waves of up to 20 feet batter the coast as Cyclone Pam sweeps southward offshore.
  • *Acting Immigration Minister, Senator Dr. McClelland announces he will exercise his powers under the Passport Act to cancel the passports of Alexander Barton and his son who are currently residing in Rio de Janeiro.
  • 7 February –
  • *The New South Wales Government issues warrants for the arrest of millionaire businessman Alexander Barton and his son Thomas, who are in Brazil. The Federal Government can now move to have the Bartons extradited from Rio de Janeiro. The Bartons left Australia with their wives soon after the collapse of their companies and the loss then sanicof more than $250 million of the public's money.
  • *In Singapore, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew bury their public feud and compliment each other on their policies. Lee praises the changes in Australia's immigration policy, assistance to Aborigines and aid to refugees from Bangladesh and Pakistan.
  • 26 February – Mungo Man, a human skeleton estimated to be 40,000 years old, uncovered at Lake Mungo

March

April

  • 12 April - Tasmanian Attorney-General and Deputy Premier Merv Everett resigns to contest the Senate. He is replaced by W.A. Neilson.

May

  • 18 May –
  • *The 1974 Australian federal election is held. Labor retains with 66 of the 127 seats, compared with 67 of 125 in the old House. In the Senate, the Democratic Labour Party is eliminated, having failed to come to its usual arrangement with the Coalition parties. With 29 seats each to Labor and the Coalition, the balance is ostensibly held by the Independent from Tasmania, Townley, and Liberal Movement's Steele Hall, from South Australia.
  • *The 1974 Australian referendum is held simultaneously with the federal election. Referendum proposals on democratic elections, simultaneous Senate and House elections, methods of altering the Constitution and local government received final overall votes of 46.8% Yes: 48.3% No.
  • *John Howard enters Parliament as an Opposition backbencher for the Division of Bennelong.

July

August

October

December

  • 7 December - The 1974 Queensland state election is held. Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen had campaigned on "the alien, stagnating, centralist, socialist, communist-inspired policies of the federal Labor government". In the resulting 10.7% swing against Labor, the Nationals secured 39 seats, the Liberals 30 and Labor slumped to 11.
  • 24 December – Cyclone Tracy devastates the city of Darwin. The official death toll was 71.
  • 29 December – Two parachutists are killed when they hit the ground with their parachutes unopened at 2am at Rylstone, New South Wales where the 13th Australian Parachuting Championships are being held at Rylestone-Kandos Aerodrome. The safety director for the Australian Parachutists' Association said the 2am jump was unscheduled and not part of the championships. At a federal parliamentary grievance debate on 13 February 1975, vice-president of the Australian Parachute Federation Alan Jay states that both the flight and the jump were unauthorised and that the consumption of alcohol had "obviously" contributed to the fatalities with the two parachutists jumping while twice the legal blood alcohol limit.
  • Averaged over Australia, 1974 is by far the wettest year since 1890 with an annual average of, which some former estimates had as high as. It beat the previous record of 1950 by.

Arts and literature

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Television

Sport

Births

Deaths