Events
- 8 January – Sir Thomas Bent retires as Premier of Victoria, and is replaced by John Murray.
- 9 March – Electric trams begin operation in Adelaide.
- 31 March – Victoria is the last Australian state to grant women's suffrage.
- 30 April – Tasmania begins to use the Hare-Clark single transferable vote method in the 1909 general election.
- 26 May – The Protectionist Party and the Free Trade Party merge to form the Fusion Party), led by Alfred Deakin.
- 2 June – The Labor government of Andrew Fisher is ousted from office by Alfred Deakin's Fusion Party, and Deakin becomes Prime Minister for the third time.
- 5 June – Steam trams begin operation in Rockhampton, Queensland.
- 18 August to 21 August – Disastrous floods strike Victoria.
- 6 October – Martha Rendell becomes the last woman to be hanged in Western Australia.
- 9 October – John Earle becomes Premier of Tasmania, leading Tasmania's first Labor government, however Earle's minority government only lasts a week.
- 10 December – The University of Queensland is established.
- 14 December – New South Wales passes law ceding land to the Commonwealth for construction of the national capital, Canberra.
- 21 December – British Field Marshal Lord Kitchener arrives in Darwin after an invitation from Alfred Deakin to review Australia's military and defence plans.
- 24 December – Former Prime Minister Sir George Reid resigns from Parliament to become Australia's first High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
Read more about this topic: 1909 In Australia
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If I have renounced the search of truth, if I have come into the port of some pretending dogmatism, some new church, some Schelling or Cousin, I have died to all use of these new events that are born out of prolific time into multitude of life every hour. I am as bankrupt to whom brilliant opportunities offer in vain. He has just foreclosed his freedom, tied his hands, locked himself up and given the key to another to keep.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“One cannot be a good historian of the outward, visible world without giving some thought to the hidden, private life of ordinary people; and on the other hand one cannot be a good historian of this inner life without taking into account outward events where these are relevant. They are two orders of fact which reflect each other, which are always linked and which sometimes provoke each other.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)