Australia Day Trivia
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49 free Australia Day trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 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 49 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 49 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 02Which governor marked the colony's thirtieth year in 1818 with a public holiday and a thirty-gun salute?
Lachlan Macquarie
Lachlan Macquarie ordered the first official celebration of 26 January, with thirty guns at Dawes Point counting out the colony's years, a salute his successors kept up.
Q 03Which protest began on 26 January 1972 as four men under a beach umbrella outside Parliament House?
Aboriginal Tent Embassy
The Aboriginal Tent Embassy began when four young activists planted a beach umbrella on the Parliament House lawn to protest the McMahon government's stance on land rights, and tents soon replaced it.
Q 04Which radio station moved its annual music countdown off Australia Day from 2018 after polling its listeners?
Triple J
Triple J moved the Hottest 100 after 60 per cent of listeners in its 2017 survey backed a change, shifting the countdown to the fourth weekend of January.
Q 05Which singer was hastily naturalised just before accepting the 1987 Australian of the Year award?
John Farnham
John Farnham had lived in Australia since boyhood, yet it emerged just before the presentation that the English-born singer had never been naturalised, so he was sworn in almost overnight.
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 at Darling Harbour before Kang was pinned down; Ian Kiernan, that year's Australian of the Year, said he 'got a good headlock on him'.
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 what was then Australia's biggest corporate collapse and served four years in prison.
Q 08Protesters who march on 26 January commonly call Australia Day by which name?
Invasion Day
Invasion Day was how protesters styled the Bicentenary in 1988, when more than 40,000 people marched through Sydney while tall ships filled the harbour.
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 ruled out Botany Bay, so Phillip took boats north and found Port Jackson, which he called 'the finest harbour in the world'.
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 11Which country's Republic Day falls on 26 January, the same date as Australia Day?
India
India's Republic Day marks its constitution coming into force on 26 January 1950, so two former British possessions hold national days on the same date for unrelated reasons.
Q 12From which English city did the First Fleet sail on 13 May 1787, bound for Botany Bay?
Portsmouth
Portsmouth saw eleven ships leave on a voyage of more than 24,000 kilometres, and some 250 days later all eleven reached Botany Bay without a single vessel lost.
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 has run since 2003, Aboriginal-owned and led through Redfern's Gadigal Information Service, as the successor to protest concerts held on the date in the 1990s.
Q 22Which band topped the first two Hottest 100 polls, in 1989 and 1990, with a song released in 1980?
Joy Division
Joy Division's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' won both times because the poll was then an all-time list; it was rested in 1992 and relaunched as an annual countdown the next year.
Q 23Which Victorian society first promoted 26 January as a common holiday outside NSW?
Australian Natives' Association
Q 14Which armed tender reached Botany Bay on 18 January 1788, two days before the First Fleet's flagship?
Supply
Supply led a 'flying squadron' of the fastest ships that was meant to prepare the site, but the first transports arrived the next day, so no groundwork was possible.
Q 15What formally happened at Sydney Cove on 7 February 1788?
The colony was proclaimed
The colony was proclaimed that day, along with Phillip's governorship, so 26 January marks the flag-raising and not the legal founding of New South Wales.
Q 16About how many people died on the First Fleet's eight-month voyage, which carried more than 1,400?
About 50
About 50: surgeon John White counted 48 deaths, a rate of roughly three per cent, whereas the Second Fleet in 1790 lost a quarter of its convicts at sea.
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 was a port Phillip knew from his years as a captain in the Portuguese Navy, and the fleet stayed a month from 5 August while ships were repaired and he bought 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 19What name did Aboriginal leaders give the protest meeting they held in Sydney on 26 January 1938?
Day of Mourning
The Day of Mourning was organised by Jack Patten and William Ferguson's Aborigines Progressive Association, whose members marched to Australian Hall and days later put their demands to Prime Minister Joseph Lyons.
Q 20Which alternative name for 26 January is shared by a Sydney concert first staged in 1992?
Survival Day
Survival Day was also the name of the concert, first held at La Perouse to celebrate the fact that Indigenous people and culture have survived despite colonisation and discrimination.
The Australian Natives' Association, a society of Australian-born white men, 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 withheld a full public holiday for the 1888 centenary of the First Fleet's landing?
Adelaide
Adelaide observed the day only partly, with a thanksgiving service, cycling races and evening fireworks, while every other capital took a full public holiday.
Q 25When every state marked 26 January as Australia Day by 1935, which older name did New South Wales keep?
Anniversary Day
Anniversary Day stayed the New South Wales name until 1946, when the Commonwealth and the states agreed to unify their celebrations under the single title Australia 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 1994, when every state and territory fixed the holiday on the date itself.
Q 27Which objection was raised to re-enacting the First Fleet's voyage for the 1988 Bicentenary?
It might offend Indigenous Australians
It might offend Indigenous Australians, critics said, and the federal government refused further funding, so a Sydney radio appeal raised the money that kept the ships sailing.
Q 28Which Sydney Swans champion was named 2014 Australian of the Year for his stand against racism?
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 organisers feared a repeat of the 2005 Cronulla riots, where rioters had draped themselves in the flag, but Prime Minister John Howard condemned the request as pushing their politics on young fans.