2006 жылғы Австралия оқиғалары

The following lists events that happened during 2006 in Australia.

1 January – Bushfires grip parts of the Central Coast and the Riverina in New South Wales and the Wimmera in Victoria after one of the hottest New Years Days on record, with the Sydney central business district reaching 45 °C (113 °F). 2 January – A skydiving plane crash near Willowbank in Queensland claims five lives. 9 January – Communities in the Pilbara region of Western Australia are evacuated due to Cyclone Clare. 10 January – Six Australians die when a bus flips over in Egypt. 16 January – Premier of Western Australia Geoff Gallop resigns, citing clinical depression as the reason. 22–29 January – Bushfires affect several towns in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. Three volunteer firefighters are killed. 24 January – Alan Carpenter replaces Gallop as Premier of Western Australia.

18 February – Six teenagers are killed and another is injured in a hit and run accident in Cardross, Victoria, near Mildura.

5 March Sydney FC win the inaugural A League Grand Final, beating Central Coast Mariners 1–0. 18 March – South Australia and Tasmania vote in parliamentary state elections. Both the Mike Rann and Paul Lennon governments are re elected. 20 March – Tropical Cyclone Larry strikes Innisfail and Cairns in Far North Queensland. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, no one is killed. 23 March – Microsoft releases the Xbox 360 games console in Australia. 27 March – The WorkChoices industrial relations reforms come into effect.

7 April – John Landy retires as Governor of Victoria, and is succeeded by David de Kretser. 18 April – More than 19 Australian Federal Police officers are injured as the capital of the Solomon Islands, Honiara, erupts into rioting. In response to this, the Prime Minister of Australia John Howard orders an Army deployment of 220 troops. 21 April – Private Jacob Kovco becomes the first casualty of Australia's involvement in the Iraq campaign. The reason given initially was that his gun had accidentally discharged while cleaning his gun, although this was later retracted. It was later stated that he had accidentally shot himself while skylarking with his pistol. 25 April – A small earthquake causes a rock fall in a gold mine in Beaconsfield, Tasmania. Eleven miners come out, but three are left inside. One of them is found dead on 28 April. The other two are freed on 9 May. 26 April – The body of Bosnian civilian contractor Juso Sinanovic is taken to Australia instead of the body of Private Kovco. Private Kovco's body later arrived in Australia on 29 April.

16 May – Bill Stefaniak topples Brendan Smyth as leader of the ACT Liberal Party. 25 May – Australian troops are redeployed to East Timor after fresh outbreaks of violence.

2 June – The A$1.4 billion sale of the Myer department store chain to Newbridge Capital and the Myer family is completed. 12 June Australia's national football team, the Socceroos, play their first FIFA World Cup match in 32 years against Japan. The match ended in a historic 3–1 victory to Australia, courtesy of late comeback goals by Tim Cahill and John Aloisi. The match is considered one of Australia's finest sporting achievements, and was responsible for the emergence of the Australia Japan football rivalry.

9 July – Revelations are published in News Limited newspapers that, in 1994, John Howard made a secret deal with Peter Costello to hand over the leadership of the Liberal Party to him after having served two terms in office as Prime Minister. 17 July Australia's largest recorded inundation caused by a tsunami hits the Western Australian coast at Steep Point. 29 July – In the face of a worsening water supply crisis, a referendum is held in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia's second largest inland city, on the issue of using water recycled from the city's sewerage as a source of drinking water. The acrimonious campaign and emotional debate were watched closely nationwide as most other Australian cities raise water restrictions in the face of record low dam and river levels.

8 August – night.

4 September – Steve Irwin dies in an accident when he is struck in the heart by a stingray barb off Queensland's coast. 8 September – Peter Brock is killed in a smash when his rally car skids off a bend and hits a tree. 9 September – Peter Beattie is re elected Queensland premier at an early state election. 26 September – Seven people are killed in a horror road smash outside the Victoria town of Donald.

After some of the hottest October days on record, bushfires ravage parts of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. 18 October – Linda Lavarch resigns as Queensland's Attorney General to seek treatment for depression, after it is revealed she refused a deal to return Jayant Patel (dubbed "Dr Death" by the media) to Australia to face criminal charges. 20 October – Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation company buys a 7.5 per cent stake in its main competitor, John Fairfax Holdings (publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Australian Financial Review). 25 October – New South Wales Police minister Carl Scully is sacked after it is shown that he had misled parliament on two occasions about the 2005 Cronulla riots. 25 October – Comments that Sheikh Taj El Din Hilaly made about women who dressed immodestly being responsible for rape are made public in The Australian. The sheik is forced to retract such comments on 26 October.

11 November – Belinda Emmett, a TV personality and wife of Rove McManus, dies, after a battle with breast cancer. 22 November – Sydney is covered in smoke after raging fires in the Blue Mountains. 25 November – Steve Bracks is re elected Victorian premier at the state election. 29 November – One SAS soldier and the helicopter captain are dead and eight more rescued when a Blackhawk helicopter hits the deck of HMAS Kanimbla and crashes into waters off the coast of Fiji. 30 November – Greg Page, the founding member and lead singer of Australia's famous children's band The Wiggles, announced his retirement due to orthostatic intolerance. He handed his yellow skivvy to Sam Moran.

4 December – Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard successfully challenge Kim Beazley and Jenny Macklin in a caucus ballot for leadership and deputy leadership of the Australian Labor Party. 18 December – 16 year old girl Stacey Mitchell is murdered by lesbian couple Jessica Stasinowsky and Valerie Parashumti. She was bludgeoned with a concrete block and strangled with a chain, with her corpse found in a wheelie bin. The Gippsland region of Victoria and Eastern Tasmania come under threat as a result of bushfires.

Investigation into AWB Limited's role in the Oil for Food Programme, sometimes referred to as Wheatgate or Oil for wheat. The official inquiry states that AWB directors did know about the kickback payments as early as 2001 and that government ministers did not know about the kickbacks, although this was not in their brief.

22 June – Roger McDonald wins the Miles Franklin Award for The Ballad of Desmond Kale. Gregory Day is awarded the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for The Patron Saint of Eels. Kate Grenville's novel The Secret River wins the Christina Stead Prize for fiction. Peter Carey's novel Theft: A Love Story wins the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction.