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50 free Australia Day trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Australia Day is a holiday with a stranger history than most people realise. The name was first attached to a wartime fundraiser, the colony it commemorates was not legally founded on the date it marks, and the states could not agree on when to take the day off for most of the twentieth century. These 50 questions stay on the holiday itself: the First Fleet's eight-month voyage and what went wrong at Botany Bay, how 26 January became a national day, the Australian of the Year award from its first winner to the newest, the honours list, the Hottest 100 and its move off the date, lamb ads, fireworks and ferry races, the Day of Mourning, the Tent Embassy and the Invasion Day and Survival Day observances that share the calendar. Play it on the day, use it for a pub quiz or a classroom round, or print it for the barbecue table. Every answer comes with a one-line explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The name 'Australia Day' was first used on 30 July 1915 for a day raising funds for whom?
Wounded soldiers
Wounded soldiers were the cause: Ellen Wharton Kirke, a mother of four servicemen, proposed the fundraising day, and the patriotic name only migrated to 26 January later.
Q 02In 1818 Governor Macquarie gave government workers a holiday and an extra ration of what?
Fresh meat
Fresh meat, one pound per worker, came with a 30-gun salute at Dawes Point, one gun for each year of the colony, beginning a tradition later governors kept.
Q 03What sheltered the Aboriginal Tent Embassy when it was first set up outside Parliament House in 1972?
A beach umbrella
A beach umbrella was the original shelter, planted against the McMahon government's land-rights stance; the embassy is now the world's longest continuous Indigenous land-rights protest.
Q 04In which year did Triple J first count down the Hottest 100 on 27 January rather than Australia Day?
2018
2018 was the first countdown off the date: after 64,990 listeners were surveyed and 60% backed a move, the 2017 poll was announced on the fourth Saturday of January.
Q 05Which singer was hastily naturalised just before accepting the 1987 Australian of the Year award?
John Farnham
John Farnham, born in England, was named 1987 Australian of the Year in the Bicentennial year before he had been naturalised, so a swearing-in was organised first.
Q 06What did protester David Kang fire at Prince Charles during an Australia Day speech in Sydney?
A starting pistol
A starting pistol loaded with blanks was fired twice; Australian of the Year Ian Kiernan and NSW Premier John Fahey wrestled Kang to the stage floor at Darling Harbour.
Q 07Which 1978 Australian of the Year, who bankrolled America's Cup bids, was later jailed for fraud?
Alan Bond
Alan Bond shared the 1978 award with land-rights leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu, then presided over Australia's biggest corporate collapse and served four years in prison.
Q 08In which year did the 1948 Act creating a distinct Australian nationality take effect, on 26 January?
1949
1949 is the year: until then Australians were legally British subjects, and the Act was timed to start on the national day.
Q 09Why did Arthur Phillip abandon Botany Bay for Port Jackson within days of the First Fleet's arrival?
Shallow water, scarce fresh water
Shallow water, scarce fresh water and poor soil made Botany Bay useless for anchoring close to shore, while Port Jackson 12 km north had sheltered deep water.
Q 10Which supermarket dropped Australia Day merchandise in 2024, prompting Peter Dutton to urge a boycott?
Woolworths
Woolworths and sister chain Big W cited a 'gradual decline in community demand', and Dutton told 2GB listeners to take their business elsewhere.
Q 11In which year was the holiday first fixed on 26 January in every state, whatever the weekday?
1994
1994 was the first year the date was fixed everywhere, ending the practice in some states of taking a Friday in late January for a long weekend.
Q 12From which English port did the First Fleet sail on 13 May 1787, bound for Botany Bay?
Portsmouth
Portsmouth was the departure point for a voyage of more than 24,000 kilometres and 250 days, with stops in the Canaries, South America and southern Africa.
Q 13Which French explorer's two ships sailed into Botany Bay six days after the First Fleet arrived there?
La Pérouse
La Pérouse's Astrolabe and Boussole had expected a thriving colony where they could repair and restock, not a newly arrived convict fleet even worse provisioned than themselves.
Q 21Which festival, 'music to a beat' in Gadigal language, fills Sydney's Victoria Park on 26 January?
Yabun
Yabun is Australia's largest annual one-day festival of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, a continuation of the Survival Day events of the 1990s.
Q 22Which band's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' topped the first two Hottest 100 polls, in 1989 and 1990?
Joy Division
Joy Division won when the poll was an all-time list voted by post; it only became an annual best-of-the-year countdown in 1993.
Q 23Which Victorian society of native-born white men first promoted 26 January as a national day outside NSW?
Australian Natives' Association
Q 14Which armed tender reached Botany Bay on 18 January 1788, two days before the First Fleet's flagship?
HMS Supply
HMS Supply led a 'flying squadron' of the fastest ships meant to prepare the site, but it arrived only hours ahead of the rest, so no groundwork was possible.
Q 15On which date in 1788 was the Colony of New South Wales formally proclaimed, not the landing date?
7 February
7 February is when the proclamation of the colony and of Arthur Phillip's governorship were read out, so 26 January actually marks the flag-raising, not the legal founding.
Q 16How many deaths did First Fleet surgeon John White record during the eight-month voyage from England?
48
48 deaths against 28 births was White's tally; 36 of the dead were male convicts, a low toll for a 250-day passage carrying more than 1,400 people.
Q 17In which South American port did the First Fleet spend a month in 1787 taking on food and water?
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro hosted the fleet from 5 August; the women convicts' lice-infested clothing was dealt with there and Phillip ordered large quantities of food.
Q 18The First Fleet flagship HMS Sirius was wrecked on a reef in 1790 at which second penal colony?
Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island, settled for its flax and timber, claimed Sirius on a reef on 19 March 1790 while she was landing stores, leaving the colony a single naval vessel.
Q 19Which group led by Jack Patten and William Ferguson organised the 1938 Day of Mourning in Sydney?
Aborigines Progressive Association
The Aborigines Progressive Association marched from Sydney Town Hall to the Australian Hall 150 years after the landing, then met Prime Minister Joseph Lyons to press its demands.
Q 20In which year was the first Survival Day concert staged in Sydney as a counter-event to 26 January?
1992
1992 saw the first Survival Day concert, celebrating that Indigenous people and culture had survived despite colonisation and discrimination, and the name has since spread nationally.
The Australian Natives' Association dubbed it 'ANA Day' and lobbied until Victoria adopted 26 January as Australia Day in 1931, with every state following by 1935.
Q 24Which colonial capital alone sat out the 1888 centenary celebrations of the First Fleet's landing?
Adelaide
Adelaide was the exception; contested views of the day have been recorded since at least that 1888 centenary, when every other capital celebrated.
Q 25When every state marked 26 January as Australia Day by 1935, which older name did New South Wales keep?
Anniversary Day
Anniversary Day remained the NSW name until the 1946 agreement unified celebrations under one title; competition with Anzac Day had slowed the idea of a single national day.
Q 26After the 1946 agreement to unify celebrations, on which day was the public holiday actually taken?
The nearest Monday
The nearest Monday gave a long weekend, an arrangement that lasted until every state fixed the holiday on the date itself.
Q 27Why did the Hawke government refuse to fund the First Fleet re-enactment for the 1988 Bicentenary?
It might offend Indigenous Australians
It might offend Indigenous Australians, the government believed, so Sydney radio 2GB raised the money while Canberra funded a rival parade of tall ships into the harbour.
Q 28Which Sydney Swans dual Brownlow medallist was named 2014 Australian of the Year?
Adam Goodes
Adam Goodes won Brownlow Medals in 2003 and 2006, and his outspokenness on race made him the target of a sustained booing campaign that became a national debate.
Q 29Where did activist Burnum Burnum plant the Aboriginal flag on 26 January 1988 to 'claim' England?
White cliffs of Dover
The white cliffs of Dover were his stage for a satirical declaration of possession, mirroring what Arthur Phillip had done at Sydney Cove two centuries before.
Q 30Which festival's Sydney organisers asked patrons not to bring Australian flags in January 2007?
Big Day Out
Big Day Out's request was widely defied, with crowds arriving in flag apparel and Jet playing before a giant black-and-white flag cut-out of their name.