1976 in Australia


The following lists events that happened during 1976 in Australia.

Incumbents

January

  • 1 January –
  • *The Australian Journalists Association's Queensland president Quentin Dempster says he intends to complain to state police minister Max Hodges about the conduct of Queensland police officers, alleging that they had coshed, elbowed and thumped journalists covering New Year's Eve on the Gold Coast, despite identifying themselves and showing their police press passes signed by commissioner Ray Whitrod. Hodges subsequently apologises on behalf of the Queensland Police Force, which Dempster accepts on behalf of AJA members.
  • *Kenneth Nash, one of the key figures in the Bogle-Chandler case from 1963, is found shot dead near his home in the Sydney suburb of Chatswood.
  • 2 January – An Italian family's rental yacht is sliced in two on Sydney Harbour when it collides with 2,539-ton Japanese ship Kaiyo Maru. 45-year-old Alitalia pilot George Morelli, his wife, their 16-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter all survive and escape with just minor injuries.
  • 3 January –
  • *New South Wales Police conduct three early morning raids on homes in the Sydney suburbs of Edgecliff, Randwick and Bellevue Hill and seize more than $100,000 worth of heroin.
  • *A 22-year-old Australian man is killed when he slips and falls while climbing Mount Cook in New Zealand's Southern Alps.
  • *A 44-year-old inmate at Melbourne's Pentridge Prison is seriously injured when he opens a box, booby-trapped with a bomb.
  • 5 January –
  • *The Family Law Act comes into effect as Elizabeth Evatt is sworn in as first Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia.
  • *Peko-Wallsend announces that 210 employees of their Mount Morgan Mine in Queensland will be retrenched due to depressed copper prices and dwindling ore reserves.
  • 6 January –
  • *A delegation of four United States congressmen led by Senator Ernest Hollings meets with prime minister Malcolm Fraser, foreign minister Andrew Peacock and opposition leader Gough Whitlam. Discussions include the development of the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean.
  • *The body of a woman tied to an anchor with a nylon rope is found floating in Sydney Harbour. A post-mortem examination reveals she had been shot in the back of the head. She is identified as 24-year-old Maria Anne Hisshion who was last seen on 24 December 1975. Hisshion is later revealed to have been a suspected drug courier linked to the Mr. Asia drug syndicate.
  • 9 January – The body of missing 48-year-old St Marys woman Coral Elaine Reeves is discovered in bushland at Marsden Park. She had been murdered on 4 January by a 48-year-old Bruce John Drawbridge while he was on weekend release from Silverwater Prison, having already been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment after committing a double murder in 1959. Drawbridge is sentenced to life imprisonment for Reeves' murder.
  • 10 January –
  • *Three people drown in South Australia when their 14 ft dinghy capsizes near the mouth of the Murray River after their vessel's outboard motor fails causing the current to sweep it out into rough seas.
  • *A large hailstorm hits the Queensland city of Toowoomba causing widespread damage, including to the roofs and windows of more than 100 homes. Seven people were treated by ambulance officers and two were taken to hospital with lacerations from flying glass.
  • 12 January –
  • *8-year-old girl Eloise Worledge disappears from her home in the Melbourne suburb of Beaumaris, with police fearing she has been abducted.
  • *Nobel Prize winning chemist John Cornforth is proclaimed as the Australian of the Year for 1975.
  • *A 24-year-old coal miner is killed and four others injured during an underground gas explosion at the Nymboida Colliery, south-west of Grafton, New South Wales.
  • 16 January – A freight train crashes into the rear of a passenger train at Glenbrook, killing an 84-year-old passenger and injuring ten others.
  • 19 January – Tropical Cyclone David crosses the Central Queensland coast just north of St Lawrence, generating huge swells and causing extensive damage on Heron Island and in Yeppoon, particularly to infrastructure at Rosslyn Bay Harbour.
  • 20 January –
  • *In an apparent desire from within the party for stronger leadership, a spill motion was suddenly called for the leadership of the governing New South Wales Liberal Party. Sitting premier Tom Lewis opted not to contest the leadership ballot, with Sir Eric Willis elected to the position unopposed, making him the premier of New South Wales.
  • *Four-year-old Peggy Clements is found alive on a remote property near Marble Bar, Western Australia after having been kidnapped from a car in Cobar, New South Wales eleven weeks prior. After being extradited to New South Wales, Kenneth Charles Stuart is charged and is found guilty by a jury of kidnapping, indecent assault and causing bodily harm. Stuart is sentenced to a total of 14 years in jail with a non-parole period of six years.
  • *Supreme Court judge Gordon Samuels is appointed as chancellor of the University of New South Wales succeeding Sir Robert Webster.
  • 26 January –
  • *The 1976 Australia Day Honours are announced. Sir Bernard Heinze, Gordon Jackson, Peter Karmel, Ken Myer and Arthur Dale Trendall are made companions of the Order of Australia.
  • *For the first time, Sydney's Australia Day ceremony is held outside Customs House at Circular Quay - the same location where Captain Arthur Phillip is believed to have first raised the British flag 188 years prior. A reproduction of the British flag of the time is raised followed by a three-gun salute.
  • 27 January –
  • *Gough Whitlam is comfortably re-elected as the leader of the Australian Labor Party despite being challenged for the leadership by Lionel Bowen and Frank Crean.
  • *After 21 months in the role, Vince Gair is dismissed as ambassador of Australia to Ireland. Gair describes his dismissal as unfair and says had been given no reason for his sacking, and considered he had been a conscientious ambassador.
  • 31 January – The Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser states that no "soft options" were left to get Australia out of its economic difficulties. In a major statement backing his Government's surprise opposition to wage indexations, he said it was a matter of wage increase or jobs.

    February

  • 1 February –
  • *Five people are killed when two light planes collide above Parafield Airport, 16 km north of Adelaide.
  • *Nick Parkinson is announced as ambassador of Australia to the United States.
  • *James W. Hargrove is confirmed as the new ambassador of the United States to Australia.
  • 6 February – 34-year-old Patricia O'Shane becomes Australia's first Aboriginal barrister.
  • 9 February – Victorian Premier Rupert Hamer announces a 20 March date for the 1976 Victorian state election, saying it is the most convenient date because of the Premiers' Conferences due to be held in Canberra in late April and June.
  • 10 February – Two RAAF helicopters rescue 54 passengers and 22 crew members who had been trapped aboard The Ghan passenger train which had been stranded for four days between the flooded Alberga and Finke Rivers near Oodnadatta in South Australia.
  • 14 February – The 1976 Orange state by-election is held, which is won by the Country Party's Garry West.
  • 16 February –A jury finds 56-year-old Norma Allison Pinker guilty of murdering her 49-year-old de facto husband Richard Bruce Abson, making her the first Victorian woman in ten years to be convicted of murder. Pinker is sentenced to life but unsuccessfully appeals the sentence. She had previously been acquitted for murdering her first husband in 1965, after claiming self defence.
  • 22 February – Widespread damage occurs in the Queensland city of Bundaberg when Severe Cyclone Beth crosses the coast.
  • 26 February – The Australian newspaper publishes allegations that Labor leader Gough Whitlam had discussed an offer from the Iraqi Government of providing a $US500,000 contribution to Labor's federal election campaign. In the story, purportedly written by Rupert Murdoch under the byline of "special correspondent", it was alleged pro-Palestinian activist Bill Hartley proposed to national Labor secretary David Combe that funding could be obtained from the Middle East for the party's campaign. Whitlam denies the allegation that he met with two Iraqi officials in Sydney just prior to the 1975 federal election to discuss the offer and launches defamation proceedings against News Limited. However, national ALP president Bob Hawke confirms the Iraqi Government had offered to make the $500,000 contribution, but that the party had rejected it. Prime minister Malcolm Fraser orders an inquiry into the visit to Australia in December 1975 by the two Iraqi officials.
  • 28 February – Three people, including a fire officer, are taken to hospital after inhaling fumes from an ammonia leak in Harris Street in the Sydney suburb of Broadway.
  • 29 February – A pilot and his five passengers are killed in a light aircraft crash near Merimbula, New South Wales.