1975
Australian Events
- Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act comes into force.
- Vietnamese refugees and other Asian immigrants are permitted to enter Australia under the policy of multiculturalism.
- Family Law Court is established.
- Order of Australia honours system is introduced.
- Medibank, the subsidised fee-for-service federal health-care model is made universal. It is funded by a levy on income and aims for equity in health care.
- November 11: The Whitlam Government is dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr after the Opposition Senators suspended the Budget allocations (Supply), setting off a constitutional crisis.
- The Governor-General's proclamation dissolving parliament ended with the words "God save the Queen". Mr Whitlam said: "Well may we say 'God save the Queen', because nothing will save the Governor-General."
- Fraser (caretaker) Government, November 11: Sir John Kerr appoints the Opposition Leader, Malcolm Fraser, as Prime Minister and commissions him to form an interim government until elections are held.
- Fraser Government, December 13: The Liberal-National coalition is elected with a large majority. The new government faces the highest unemployment for 40 years and the worst prolonged inflation in the nation's history.
- John Warcup Cornforth is awarded the 1975 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions". Born in Sydney he graduated from Sydney University with first-class honours and a University medal before attending Oxford on scholarship.
- Colour television transmissions begin.
† The Malcolm Fraser Collection
World Events
- End of the Vietnam war (South Vietnam surrenders).
- Suez Canal re-opens to shipping.
- Civil War begins in Lebanon.
- Papua New Guinea gains independence.
- Indonesia occupies East Timor.
- Death of Franco ends dictatorship in Spain.
- Apollo-Soyuz space link; US and Soviet astronauts meet in space, 200kms above the earth's surface.