February 3 - Australian P.M Malcolm Fraser is granted a double dissolution of both houses of parliament for a double dissolution election for the March 5, on that day Bob Hawke replaces Bill Hayden as federal ALP leader
February 28 - Over 100 million television viewers tune in to watch the final episode of M*A*S*H on CBS making it the most watched television show in history at the time.
May 16 NSW Premier Neville Wran steps down in response to alligations rasied by ABC program Four Corners That he Attempted to influence the NSW Majestry
September 23 - Mass outbreak in Maze prison - 38 prisoners hijack a lorry and crash out of the gate - one guard dead, 5 injured. 19 of the prisoners are later apprehended.
September 23 - Barbara Turnbull, a Canadian 18 year old girl, was shot in the neck and became paralyzed for life during a store robbery in Mississauga, Canada.
November 26 - Brinks Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly UK£26 million are taken from the Brinks Mat vault at Heathrow Airport. Only a fraction of the gold was ever recovered, and only two men were convicted of the crime.
[November 30] ASIS (Australian Secret Intelligence Service) agents Bungle A traning exercise on the Melbourne Sheraton
December
December 9 - The Australian Dollar is Floated, By Federal treasuer Paul Keating. Under the old flexible peg system, the Reserve bank bought and sold all Australian dollars and cleared the market at the end of the day. This initiative was taken by the government of Bob Hawke.
November 20 - ABC-TV in the USA broadcasts the controversial movie The Day After about what a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union might be like.
