Incumbents

• Premier of New South Wales
  Premiers of New South Wales
  The Premier of New South Wales is the head of government in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The Government of New South Wales follows the Westminster system, with a Parliament of New South Wales acting as the legislature...
  
   - George Reid
  George Reid (Australian politician)
  Sir George Houstoun Reid, GCB, GCMG, KC was an Australian politician, Premier of New South Wales and the fourth Prime Minister of Australia....
  
  
• Premier of South Australia
  Premiers of South Australia
  Before the 1890s when there was no formal party system in South Australia, MPs tended to have historical liberal or conservative beliefs. The liberals dominated government from 1893 to 1905 with Labor support, with the conservatives mostly in opposition. Labor took government with the support of...
  
   - Charles Kingston
  Charles Kingston
  Charles Cameron Kingston, Australian politician, was an early liberal Premier of South Australia serving from 1893 to 1899 with the support of Labor led by John McPherson from 1893 and Lee Batchelor from 1897 in the House of Assembly, winning the 1893, 1896, and 1899 state elections against the...
  
  
• Premier of Queensland
  Premiers of Queensland
  Before the 1890s, there was no developed party system in Queensland. Political affiliation labels before that time indicate a general tendency only. Before the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, political parties were more akin to parliamentary factions, and were fluid, informal and...
  
   - Hugh Nelson
  Hugh Nelson
  Sir Hugh Muir Nelson, KCMG was Premier of Queensland from 1893 to 1898.Nelson was born at Kilmarnock, Scotland. His father, Dr William Lambie Nelson, was elected to the first Queensland parliament in 1860 but was unseated because he was a minister of religion...
  
   (until 13 April), Thomas Joseph Byrnes
  Thomas Joseph Byrnes
  Thomas Joseph Byrnes was Premier of Queensland from April 1898 until his death, having previously served in several ministerial positions in his parliamentary career.-Early life:...
  
   (died in office 27 September) then James Dickson
  James Dickson
  Sir James Robert Dickson, KCMG was an Australian politician and businessman, the 13th Premier of Queensland and a member of the first federal ministry....
  
  
• Premier of Tasmania
  Premiers of Tasmania
  The Premier of Tasmania is the head of the executive government in the Australian state of Tasmania. By convention, the party or political grouping which has majority support in the House of Assembly will nominate its leader to be Premier. The nominated politician is then invited by the Governor of...
  
   - Edward Braddon
  Edward Braddon
  Sir Edward Nicholas Coventry Braddon, KCMG , Australian politician, was the Premier of Tasmania from 1894 to 1899, and was a Member of the First Australian Parliament in the House of Representatives...
  
  
• Premier of Western Australia
  Premier of Western Australia
  The Premier of Western Australia is the head of the executive government in the Australian State of Western Australia. The Premier has similar functions in Western Australia to those performed by the Prime Minister of Australia at the national level, subject to the different Constitutions...
  
   - John Forrest
  John Forrest
  Sir John Forrest GCMG was an Australian explorer, the first Premier of Western Australia and a cabinet minister in Australia's first federal parliament....
  
  
• Premier of Victoria
  Premiers of Victoria
  The Premier of Victoria is the leader of the government in the Australian state of Victoria. The Premier is appointed by the Governor of Victoria, and is the leader of the political party able to secure a majority in the Legislative Assembly....
  
   - George Turner
  George Turner (Australian politician)
  Sir George Turner, KCMG, PC , Australian politician, was the 18th Premier of Victoria and the first Treasurer of Australia in the federal Barton Ministry....
  
  

Events

• 6 May - The paddle steamer
  Paddle steamer
  A paddle steamer is a steamship or riverboat, powered by a steam engine, using paddle wheels to propel it through the water. In antiquity, Paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans...
  
   Maitland sinks near Broken Bay
  Broken Bay
  Broken Bay is a large inlet of the Pacific Ocean located about 50 km north of Sydney on the coast of New South Wales, Australia, and is the first major bay north of Sydney's Port Jackson.- Geography :...
  
  , drowning 24 people.
• 3–4 June - A referendum
  Referendums in Australia
  In Australia, referendums are binding polls usually used to alter the Constitution of the Commonwealth or a state or territory. Non-binding polls are usually referred to as plebiscites.-Federal referendums:...
  
   is held in New South Wales
  New South Wales
  New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
  
  , South Australia
  South Australia
  South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
  
  , Tasmania
  Tasmania
  Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
  
   and Victoria
  Victoria (Australia)
  Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
  
   to approve the draft Constitution of Australia
  Constitution of Australia
  The Constitution of Australia is the supreme law under which the Australian Commonwealth Government operates. It consists of several documents. The most important is the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia...
  
  . The constitution was accepted by the required majority in South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria, but not in New South Wales.
• 17 October - The Perth Zoo
  Perth Zoo
  The Perth Zoo is a zoo that opened in 1898 in South Perth, Western Australia. As of January 2011, it is home to 1258 animals of 164 species and includes an extensive botanical collection....
  
   opens with two lion
  Lion
  The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
  
  s and a tiger
  Tiger
  The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...
  
  .
• 26 December - Gatton murders
  Gatton murders
  The Gatton Murders is the name given to a still unsolved triple homicide that occurred from the town of Gatton, Queensland. Michael Murphy and his younger sisters Norah and Ellen had been beaten to death between 10pm and 4am on 26-27 December 1898 while returning home from a dance...
  
   - Three members of the same family are sexually molested and murdered near the town of Gatton, Queensland
  Gatton, Queensland
  Gatton is a town and the administrative centre of the Lockyer Valley Local Government Area situated in the Lockyer Valley of South East Queensland, Australia. At the 2006 census, Gatton had a population of 5,295....
  
   (unsolved).

• The Queen Victoria Building
  Queen Victoria Building
  The Queen Victoria Building, or QVB, is a late nineteenth century building by the architect George McRae in the central business district of Sydney, Australia. The Romanesque Revival building is 30 metres wide by 190 metres long, and fills a city block, bounded by George, Market, York and Druitt...
  
   in Sydney is completed

Arts and literature

• W. Lister Lister
  W. Lister Lister
  William Lister Lister was an Australian painter who won the Wynne Prize seven times.He was born in Manly, a suburb of Sydney...
  
   wins the Wynne Prize
  Wynne Prize
  The Wynne Prize is an Australian landscape painting or figure sculpture art prize. One of Australia's longest running art prizes, it was established in 1897 from the bequest of Richard Wynne...
  
   for landscape painting or figure sculpture for his landscape The Last Gleam

Sport

• The Grafter wins the Melbourne Cup
  Melbourne Cup
  The Melbourne Cup is Australia's major Thoroughbred horse race. Marketed as "the race that stops a nation", it is a 3,200 metre race for three-year-olds and over. It is the richest "two-mile" handicap in the world, and one of the richest turf races...
  
  
• Victoria wins the Sheffield Shield
  Pura Cup
  The Sheffield Shield is the domestic cricket competition of Australia. The tournament is contested between teams from the six states of Australia. Prior to the Shield being established, a number of intercolonial matches were played. The Shield, donated by Lord Sheffield, was first contested during...
  
  

Births

• 12 February - Sali Herman
  Sali Herman
  Sali Herman was a Swiss-born Australian artist, one of Australia's Official War Artists for the Second World War....
  
   (d. 1993), war artist
• 24 September - Howard Walter Florey
  Howard Walter Florey
  Howard Walter Florey, Baron Florey OM FRS was an Australian pharmacologist and pathologist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Sir Ernst Boris Chain and Sir Alexander Fleming for his role in the making of penicillin. Florey's discoveries are estimated to have saved...
  
   (d. 1968), pharmacologist and Nobel Prize winner

Deaths

• 20 March - Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer
  Arthur Hunter Palmer
  Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer KCMG was an Irish-Australian politician and a Premier of Queensland.Palmer was born in Armagh, Ireland, the son of Lieutenant Arthur Palmer, R.N., and his wife, Emily née Hunter. Palmer was educated at Youghal Grammar School and a private tutor in Dublin...
  
   (b. 1819), Premier of Queensland
• 19 September - George Edward Grey
  George Edward Grey
  Sir George Grey, KCB was a soldier, explorer, Governor of South Australia, twice Governor of New Zealand, Governor of Cape Colony , the 11th Premier of New Zealand and a writer.-Early life and exploration:...
  
   (b. 1812), Governor of South Australia
• 27 September - Thomas Joseph Byrnes
  Thomas Joseph Byrnes
  Thomas Joseph Byrnes was Premier of Queensland from April 1898 until his death, having previously served in several ministerial positions in his parliamentary career.-Early life:...
  
   (b. 1860), Premier of Queensland
• 2 November - George Goyder
  George Goyder
  George Woodroffe Goyder was a surveyor in South Australia during the latter half of the nineteenth century....
  
  (b. 1826), Surveyor-General of South Australia