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Australian Alps (mountains, Australia)
mountain mass, a segment of the Great Dividing Range (Eastern Uplands), occupying the southeasternmost corner of Australia, in eastern Victoria and southeastern New South Wales. In a more local sense, the term denotes the ranges on the states’ border forming the divide between the watersheds of the Murray R...
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (military corps)
combined corps that served with distinction in World War I during the ill-fated 1915 Gallipoli Campaign, an attempt to capture the Dardanelles from Turkey....
Australian Antarctic Territory (territory, Australia)
external territory claimed by Australia and located in Antarctica. See Australian External Territories....
Australian antigen (medicine)
...blood serum of an Australian Aborigine an antigen that he later (1967) determined to be part of a virus that causes hepatitis B, the most-severe form of hepatitis. The discovery of that so-called Australian antigen, which causes the body to produce antibody responses to the virus, made it possible to screen blood donors for possible hepatitis B transmission. Further research indicated that......
Australian Army Nursing Service (Australian military program)
...two years later she sold the hospital, went to see McDonnell (who at her request wrote testimonials of her nursing experience), and booked passage on a ship to England, determined to join the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS). Although only registered nurses could join the AANS, after a monthlong trial period Kenny was accepted into the service. During World War I she served as a......
Australian Ballet (Australian dance company)
leading ballet company of Australia. In 1962 the Australian Ballet Foundation, founded by art patrons interested in promoting a national ballet, sponsored the Australian Ballet company. It was formed mainly with native talent from the former Australian Borovansky Ballet....
Australian ballot (politics)
the system of voting in which voters mark their choices in privacy on uniform ballots printed and distributed by the government or designate their choices by some other secret means. Victoria and South Australia were the first states to introduce secrecy of the ballot (1856), and for that reason the ...
Australian beech (plant)
...of superficially similar trees, known as false beech (Nothofagus), are native to cooler regions of the Southern Hemisphere. The term beech has been used with a variety of qualifying terms. Australian beech refers to both Nothofagus moorei, described hereafter, and red box, a tree of the family Myrtaceae; blue beech and water beech are other names for the American hornbeam......
Australian “Black Saturday” Bushfires, The (Australian “Black Saturday” bushfires)
On Feb. 7, 2009, a day that was dubbed “Black Saturday” in Australia, deadly bushfires swept through the southern state of Victoria, leaving 173 people dead and 500 injured. In addition, more than 2,000 homes were destroyed, and experts estimated that the number of affected wildlife (killed or injured) could climb well into the...
Australian blackwood (plant)
A few acacias produce valuable timber, among them the Australian blackwood (A. melanoxylon); the yarran (A. homalophylla), also of Australia; and A. koa of Hawaii. Sweet acacia (A. farnesiana) is native to the southwestern United States. Many of the Australian species have been widely introduced elsewhere as cultivated small trees valued for their spectacular floral......
Australian Broadcasting Commission (Australian media corporation)
...and the visual and performing arts. It and equivalent agencies of the state governments help support opera and dance companies, some of which have enjoyed success abroad. The government-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation is also an important patron of the arts, particularly of music. It supports the principal symphony orchestra in each state and gives strong encouragement to......
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australian media corporation)
...and the visual and performing arts. It and equivalent agencies of the state governments help support opera and dance companies, some of which have enjoyed success abroad. The government-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation is also an important patron of the arts, particularly of music. It supports the principal symphony orchestra in each state and gives strong encouragement to......
Australian Capital Territory (territory, Australia)
political entity of the Commonwealth of Australia consisting of Canberra, the national and territorial capital, and surrounding land. Most of the Australian Capital Territory lies within the Southern Tablelands district of New South Wales in southeastern Australia, but there is also an area of some 28 square miles (73 square km) to the east ...
Australian Capital Territory, flag of (Australian federal territory flag)
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Australian cassowary (bird)
...may also provide most of the early care of the striped young. Cassowaries forage for fruits and small animals. There are three species (counted by some experts as six), each with several races. The common, or southern, cassowary, Casuarius casuarius (see photograph), which inhabits New Guinea, nearby islands, and Australia, is the largest—almost 1.5...
Australian cattle dog (breed of dog)
breed of herding dog developed in the 19th century to work with cattle in the demanding conditions of the Australian outback. It is called a heeler because it moves cattle by nipping at their feet; this trait was introduced to the breed from the dingo in its ancestry. An active, sturdy dog of medium size, it has prick ears, stands 17 to 20 inches (43 to 51 cm)...
Australian Championships (tennis tournament)
one of the world’s major tennis championships (the first of the four annual Grand Slam events), held at the National Tennis Centre at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia....
Australian Christmas tree (plant)
(species Nuytsia floribunda), parasitic tree of the mistletoe family (Loranthaceae), native to western Australia. The tree may grow to 10 m (33 feet) or more and produces many yellow-orange flowers during the Christmas season. Its dry fruits have three broad, leat...
Australian Colonies Government Act (Australia [1850])
legislation of the British House of Commons that separated the southeastern Australian district of Port Phillip from New South Wales and established it as the colony of Victoria. The act was passed in response to t...
Australian Communications Authority (Australian government agency)
...by the minister for communications, information technology, and the arts, who wields significant regulatory authority, with the ability to impose conditions on telecommunications providers, and the Australian Communications Authority (ACA), established in 1999, which licenses carriers and reports to the minister for communications. With the opening of competition, by the early 21st century......
Australian Communist Party (political party, Australia)
While the electorate generally voted conservative, Australia shared the common Western experience of the interwar years in the rise of a small, vigorous communist movement. Founded in 1922, the Australian Communist Party made most headway in the big industrial unions and in Sydney; it also had some influence and supporters among the intelligentsia, especially in the 1930s. The party suffered a......
Australian copperhead (Denisonia genus)
The Australian copperhead (Denisonia superba), a venomous snake of the cobra family (Elapidae) found in Tasmania and along the southern Australian coasts, averages 1.5 m long. It is usually coppery or reddish brown. It is dangerous but is unaggressive when left alone. The copperhead of India is a rat snake, Elaphe radiata....
Australian Corps (Australian Army corps)
...and mechanical resources—tanks, artillery, and aircraft—to relieve the infantry as much as possible of the burden of fighting its way forward. In March 1918 he took command of the Australian Corps, and on July 4 he tested his theory of the semimobile managed battle in a small-scale attack at Le Hamel, France. Its outstanding success led Monash to develop a more comprehensive......
Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations (labour organization, Australia)
...in Australia, established in May 1927. Membership grew significantly when the Australian Workers’ Union joined the ACTU in 1967. Two other mergers with federations of white-collar unions—the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations (in 1979) and the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations (in 1981)—brought membership up to about 2.5 milli...
Australian Council of Trade Unions (labour organization, Australia)
the dominant association and governing body of the trade union movement in Australia, established in May 1927. Membership grew significantly when the Australian Workers’ Union joined the ACTU in 1967. Two other mergers with federations of white-collar unions—the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional ...
Australian Council on Healthcare Standards International (Australian organization)
...organizations for international hospitals are the Joint Commission International (JCI), a branch of the U.S.-based Joint Commission Resources; Accreditation Canada International; and the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards International. Those organizations charge fees to clients who want to have their facilities surveyed for accreditation, and each organization maintains a......
Australian Country Party (political party, Australia)
Australian political party that for most of its history has held office as a result of its customary alliance with the Liberal Party of Australia. It often acted as a margin in the balance of power, but its own power declined over th...
Australian crawl (swimming)
...25 yards to 1 mile (1,609 metres). From 1904 to 1911 he won Amateur Athletic Union championships 31 times. One of the most influential swimmers of his day, Daniels pioneered a modification of the Australian crawl that emphasized the use of the whole leg and synchronized six kicks for every two-arm cycle. He was inducted into both the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame (1988) and the International......
Australian Defence Force Academy (university, Australian Capital Territory, Australia)
...Institute of Technology provides a wide range of trade and paraprofessional education. The University of Canberra (UC), the Australian National University (ANU), the University College at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA; an affiliate of the University of New South Wales), and a branch of the Australian Catholic University (ACU) offer undergraduate and postgraduate education.......
Australian Democratic Labor Party (political party, Australia)
(ADLP), right-wing political party in Australia founded in 1956–57 by Roman Catholic and other defectors from the Australian Labor Party. Militantly anticommunist, the ADLP supported Western and other anticommunist powers in Oceania and ...
Australian Democrats (political party, Australia)
left-of-centre political party founded in 1977 and supported by those dissatisfied with the major Australian parties, the Liberals on the right and the Australian Labor Party on the left. Its support is strongest among professionals and the intelligents...
Australian Election of 2010 (Australia)
The 2010 federal election was one of the most extraordinary in Australia’s history. The cycle of events started in June when power brokers with the ruling Australian Labor Party urged Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard to challenge Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for the party’s leadership, fear...
Australian Encyclopaedia, The
national encyclopaedia published in New South Wales and emphasizing distinctive features of Australia, particularly geography, natural history, and the Aborigines....
Australian External Territories (territory, Australia)
group of non-self-governing dependencies of Australia; apart from claims in Antarctica, the external territories of the Commonwealth of Australia are made up entirely of islands and cover an area almost as large as Australia itself. They consist of innumerable small reefs, cays, and atolls between the Great Barrier Reef of ...
Australian false vampire bat (Macroderma gigas)
some of the few bats known to possess white or gray fur; not every bat with white fur is called a ghost bat. Ghost bats are tropical, but only one, also called the Australian giant false vampire bat (Macroderma gigas), is found outside Central and South America. The four ghost bat species of the New World belong to the genus Diclidurus....
Australian Film and Television School (Australian school)
...established the Australian Film Development Corporation (after 1975, the Australian Film Commission) to subsidize the growth of an authentic national cinema, founded a national film school (the Australian Film and Television School, later the Australian Film Television and Radio School, or AFTRS) to train directors and other creative personnel, and initiated a system of lucrative tax......
Australian Film Commission (Australian government organization)
...Stork (1971) gave birth to a rash of “ocker” comedies, a genre that centred on boorish male characters and their antisocial behaviours. The AFDC was replaced by the Australian Film Commission (AFC) in 1975, and a more culturally refined Australian film style emerged. Period films such as Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975),......
Australian Film Development Corporation (Australian government organization)
Formed in 1970, the Australian Film Development Corporation (AFDC) was a government-funded agency charged with helping the film industry create commercial films for audiences at home and abroad. The success of Stork (1971) gave birth to a rash of “ocker” comedies, a genre that centred on boorish male characters and their antisocial behaviours. The AFDC was......
Australian fishing zone (area, Australia)
...is low, but they support a small domestic industry and are significant for tourism and recreation. Administered by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, the 200-nautical-mile (370-km) Australian fishing zone—the third largest of its type—was proclaimed in 1979 as a safeguard against foreign incursions. It covers an area considerably larger than the Australian landmass......
Australian football (sport)
a football sport distinctive to Australia that predates other modern football games as the first to create an official code of play. Invented in Melbourne, capital of the state of Victoria, in the late 1850s, the game was initially known as Melbourne, or Victorian, rules football and was an amalgam of various football rules that were in use at English public (...
Australian Football League (Australian rules football organization)
The depression of 1893–95 caused attendance at games to decline, and the VFA proposed a revenue-sharing scheme to assist struggling clubs. Leading clubs, which wanted more control over the game, opposed the scheme. In 1896 those eight leading clubs—Melbourne, Essendon, Geelong, Collingwood, South Melbourne, Fitzroy, Carlton, and St Kilda—came together to form the Victorian......
Australian fur seal (mammal)
...brown or black in colour with chestnut-coloured underfur. Length averages about 1.2–1.8 metres (4–6 feet), but the South African, or Cape, fur seal (A. pusillus) and the Australian fur seal (A. pusillus doriferus) grow to lengths and weights of about 2.5 metres (8 feet) and 300 kg in the male, 1.8 metres and 120 kg (265 pounds) in the female. Like the...
Australian gannet (bird)
...wintering to the Gulf of Mexico, Morocco, and the Mediterranean. The two slightly smaller southern species are the Cape gannet (M. capensis), which breeds on islands off South Africa, and the Australian (or Australasian) gannet (M. serrator), which breeds around Tasmania and New Zealand....
Australian Geographic (Australian magazine)
One of the projects Smith approached with his greatest enthusiasm was the quarterly magazine Australian Geographic, which he founded in 1986 and modeled on the U.S. publication National Geographic. In October 1993 Smith proudly announced that Australian Geographic would henceforth be printed in Australia rather......
Australian giant false vampire bat (Macroderma gigas)
some of the few bats known to possess white or gray fur; not every bat with white fur is called a ghost bat. Ghost bats are tropical, but only one, also called the Australian giant false vampire bat (Macroderma gigas), is found outside Central and South America. The four ghost bat species of the New World belong to the genus Diclidurus....
Australian Government Employee Organisations, Council of (labour organization, Australia)
...Australian Workers’ Union joined the ACTU in 1967. Two other mergers with federations of white-collar unions—the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations (in 1979) and the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations (in 1981)—brought membership up to about 2.5 million members, or more than three-fourths of all trade union membership in Austra...
Australian Grand Prix (auto race)
...Australian Workers’ Union joined the ACTU in 1967. Two other mergers with federations of white-collar unions—the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations (in 1979) and the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations (in 1981)—brought membership up to about 2.5 million members, or more than three-fourths of all trade union membership in Austra...
Australian Greens (political party, Australia)
Australian environmentalist political party founded in 1992. It had its origins in the United Tasmania Group (UTG), one of the world’s first Green political parties....
Australian heeler (breed of dog)
breed of herding dog developed in the 19th century to work with cattle in the demanding conditions of the Australian outback. It is called a heeler because it moves cattle by nipping at their feet; this trait was introduced to the breed from the dingo in its ancestry. An active, sturdy dog of medium size, it has prick ears, stands 17 to 20 inches (43 to 51 cm)...
Australian Henley (rowing competition)
...that has become known as the American Henley. A similar event called the Royal Canadian Henley has been held annually at St. Catharines, Ont., since 1903 (at various sites earlier to 1880). An Australian Henley at Melbourne was first held in 1904....
Australian Heritage Commission Act (Australia [1975])
The Australian Heritage Commission Act of 1975 established a federal agency to develop interest in a National Estate of listed places. Such places would be selected mainly on the basis of aesthetic, historical, scientific, or social significance. The process was not intended to guarantee any area or site against development, but the growing register was, nevertheless, made to serve that purpose......
Australian Industrial Relations Commission (Australian organization)
...hearing argument from both sides, could set minimum wages and conditions for a large section of Australian industry. In 1988 the government repealed the 1904 act, replacing the commission with the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (which also took over the responsibilities of arbitration commissions covering airline pilots, public sector employees, and the maritime industry); though......
Australian Inland Mission (religious organization, Australia)
...In September 1912 he presented a report to the Presbyterian Church assembly on the hardships of life that he had observed in central and northern Australia. The church responded by establishing the Australian Inland Mission, which Flynn directed until his death. Before 1920 Flynn had conceived of a plan that would provide medical care by airplane to remote areas. He spent several years......
Australian kingdom (floral region)
...duck-billed platypus, spiny anteaters, and the world’s concentration of pouched mammals such as kangaroos and their kin. The vegetational division roughly corresponding to this region is called the Australian kingdom. Conspicuous among the plants of the region are the eucalypti, myrtles, acacias, and casuarinas....
Australian Labor Party (political party, Australia)
one of the major Australian political parties. The first significant political representation of labour was achieved during the 1890s; in 1891, for example, candidates endorsed by the Sydney Trades and Labor Council gained 86 out of 141 seats in the New South Wales...
Australian ladybird beetle (insect)
...by two parasitic species of chalcid wasps imported from Australia, Coccophagus gurneyi and Tetracnemus pretiosus; the effective predation of an Australian ladybird beetle, or vedalia beetle (Rodolia cardinalis), on the cottony cushion scale in California; the limiting of the proliferation of the European rabbit in Australia by introduction of myxoma virus (which......
Australian languages
family of some 200 to 300 indigenous languages spoken in Australia and a few small offshore islands by approximately 50,000 people. Many of the languages are already extinct, and some are spoken by only dwindling numbers of elderly people, but a few are still vigorous. There is currently a resurgence of ethnic pride among Aboriginals, and government programs that assist Aboriginal peoples in maint...
Australian law
...under the winding-up provisions of the Company Law. A great number of the provisions of the Bankruptcy Act, however, were made applicable in such proceedings. The dual system still governs in Australia, New Zealand, and India. A number of nations, following the model of the French law of 1838, extend their bankruptcy laws only to persons qualifying as merchants or engaging in trade but do......
Australian Legendary Tales (work by Parker)
...the residual perception of the nature of traditional Aboriginal literature formed on a number of early, well-intentioned collections of myths and legends, such as Catherine Langloh Parker’s Australian Legendary Tales (1896) or Alan Marshall’s People of the Dreamtime (1952), where the stories are reshaped to meet European notions of narrative design and st...
Australian literature
the body of literatures, both oral and written, produced in Australia....
Australian lotus bird (bird)
...species of the genus Jacana include the American jacana (Jacana spinosa), of the American tropics, variably black or reddish; the African jacana (Actophilornis africanus); the Australian lotus bird (Irediparra gallinacea) of New Guinea and the eastern Australian coast; and the pheasant-tailed jacana (Hydrophasianus chirurgus), of India and the Philippines, a.....
Australian lungfish
Most species grow to substantial size. The Australian lungfish, Neoceratodus forsteri, may weigh up to 10 kg (about 22 pounds) and grow to a length of 1.25 metres (about 4 feet). Of the African lungfishes, the yellow marbled Ethiopian species, Protopterus aethiopicus, is the largest, growing to a length of 2 metres (about 7 feet). The South American species, Lepidosiren......
Australian Merino (breed of sheep)
breed of fine-wool sheep originating in Spain; it was known as early as the 12th century and may have been a Moorish importation. It was particularly well adapted to semiarid climates and to nomadic pasturing. The breed has become prominent in many countries worldwide....
Australian mountain ash (tree)
...the smallest individual flowering plant, probably the watermeal (Wolffia; Araceae) at less than 2 millimetres (0.08 inch), to one of the tallest angiosperms, Australia’s mountain ash tree (Eucalyptus regnans; Myrtaceae) at about 100 metres (330 feet). Between these two extremes lie angiosperms of almost every size and shape. Examples of this variability include the succulen...
Australian Museum (museum, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia)
...founded in Cape Town in 1825. It is likely that an amateur naturalist and diplomat, Alexander Macleay, was responsible for the initiatives that led to the opening in 1829 of what was to become the Australian Museum in Sydney....
Australian myrtle (tree)
...seven centimetres long, found in New South Wales; the mountain beech (N. cliffortioides), a 12-m-tall New Zealand tree with glossy, toothless leaves about one centimetre long; the myrtle beech, Tasmanian myrtle, or Australian, or red, myrtle (N. cunninghamii), a 60-m-tall Tasmanian tree important for its fine-textured wood; the slender, columnar red beech......
Australian National Kennel Council (Australian organization)
...three generations within the same breed. National registries, such as the American Kennel Club (AKC) in the United States, the Canadian Kennel Club, the Kennel Club of England, and the Australian National Kennel Council, maintain pedigrees and stud books on every dog in every breed registered in their respective countries. The Foxhound Kennel Stud Book, published in England in 1844, was one......
Australian National Satellite System
...only UHF (ultrahigh frequency) outlet. Radio Australia broadcasts in nine different languages to foreign countries, primarily in Asia and in the Pacific. It operates 13 shortwave stations. The Australian National Satellite System has been in operation since 1985 with the launching of AUSSAT-1 and AUSSAT-2. Through the Australian Broadcasting Corporation it provides television and radio......
Australian National University (university, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia)
state-subsidized university in Canberra, Australia. Founded in 1946, the university was originally confined to graduate study. In 1960, when Canberra University College (1929) became part of the university, undergraduates were admitted for the first time. Affiliated with the university are the Institute of Advanced Studies, the unit responsible for doctoral degrees, and research schools of medici...
Australian Natives Association (political organization, Australia)
...reluctant connivance. Better defense was one motive for association, and so was the prospect of more effective Asian immigration restriction; intercolonial free trade was another desideratum. The Australian Natives Association (the Australian-born comprised nearly two-thirds of the population in 1901) rallied to the cause....
Australian nettle (plant)
One species of Australian nettle tree, Laportea moroides, is cultivated for its raspberry-like flower clusters. Pilea, a genus of creeping plants that includes the artillery plant (P. microphylla), and pellitory (Parietaria), a genus of wall plants, are grown as ornamentals. Baby tears (Helxine soleiroli), a mosslike creeping plant with round leaves, often is......
Australian nettle tree (plant)
One species of Australian nettle tree, Laportea moroides, is cultivated for its raspberry-like flower clusters. Pilea, a genus of creeping plants that includes the artillery plant (P. microphylla), and pellitory (Parietaria), a genus of wall plants, are grown as ornamentals. Baby tears (Helxine soleiroli), a mosslike creeping plant with round leaves, often is......
Australian Open (tennis tournament)
one of the world’s major tennis championships (the first of the four annual Grand Slam events), held at the National Tennis Centre at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia....
Australian Open Championship (tennis tournament)
one of the world’s major tennis championships (the first of the four annual Grand Slam events), held at the National Tennis Centre at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia....
Australian parakeet (bird)
any of several species of popular caged birds, particularly certain Australian species, classified as parakeets. See parakeet....
Australian Patriotic Association (political organization, Australia)
(1835–42), group of influential Australians of New South Wales that sought a grant of representative government to the colony from the British House of Commons. Their efforts aided significantly in the passage of the Constitution Act of...
Australian Pavilion (building, Shanghai, China)
...high that resembled a dandelion head and was composed of tens of thousands of long thin acrylic rods with plant seeds embedded into the end of each rod. Other notable pavilions included that of Australia, the reddish brown exterior of which evoked the country’s renowned Uluru/Ayers Rock landmark; that of Switzerland, which combined an urban-themed interior with a biodegradable soybean......
Australian pine (plant)
...pinelike aspect when seen from afar. They are naturally distributed in tropical eastern Africa, the Mascarene Islands, Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Australia, and Polynesia. Some, especially the beefwood (C. equisetifolia, also called she-oak, ironwood, Australian pine, whistling pine, or swamp oak), also are used ornamentally in warm-climate countries, where they have often escaped......
Australian pitcher plant (plant)
(Cephalotus follicularis), only species in the flowering plant family Cephalotaceae (order Oxalidales), native to damp sandy or swampy terrain in southwestern Australia. It is a perennial herb with a deep taproot and a short, woody underground st...
Australian Plate (geology)
...produced the Alps and Carpathians in southern Europe and the Atlas Mountains in northwestern Africa, began roughly between 37 and 24 million years ago. The Himalayas were formed some time after the Indian Plate collided with the Eurasian Plate. These lofty mountains marked the culmination of the great uplift that occurred during the late Cenozoic when the Indian Plate drove many hundreds of......
Australian Presbyterian Church (religious organization, Australia)
Australian churchman and writer, founder of the Australian Presbyterian Church, and an influence in shaping colonization of that continent....
Australian realm (faunal region)
The Notogaean, or Australian, realm begins east of Lydekker’s Line and extends out into the Pacific Ocean (Figure 2). It consists of four regions: Australian, Oceanic, New Zealand, and Hawaiian. The faunas of many of the Pacific Islands, however, have as much in common with the Paleotropical fauna as with the Australian fauna proper. Endemic to the region are the......
Australian redback spider (spider)
name in Australia for the black widow spider....
Australian region (faunal region)
one of the six major land areas of the world defined on the basis of its characteristic animal life. It encompasses Australia and the outlying islands of Tasmania, New Guinea, New Caledonia, New Zeal...
Australian Republican Movement (Australian political organization)
...one of Australia’s top Internet and e-mail service providers, and the company was purchased by WorldCom in 1999 for $520 million (Australian). During this time, Turnbull became associated with the Australian Republican Movement (ARM), serving as its chairman from 1993 to 2000. He was one of the chief supporters of the unsuccessful referendum in 1999 that would have replaced the......
Australian Rugby Football Union (sports organization)
...the 1880s matches between teams representing New South Wales and New Zealand began, as rugby in Australia remained largely confined to the big east coast cities of Sydney and Brisbane. The national Australian Rugby Union was not formed until 1949. In other parts of Australia, Australian rules football had already established itself as the dominant sport....
Australian Rugby Union (sports organization)
...the 1880s matches between teams representing New South Wales and New Zealand began, as rugby in Australia remained largely confined to the big east coast cities of Sydney and Brisbane. The national Australian Rugby Union was not formed until 1949. In other parts of Australia, Australian rules football had already established itself as the dominant sport....
Australian rules football (sport)
a football sport distinctive to Australia that predates other modern football games as the first to create an official code of play. Invented in Melbourne, capital of the state of Victoria, in the late 1850s, the game was initially known as Melbourne, or Victorian, rules football and was an amalgam of various football rules that were in use at English public (...
Australian salmon (fish)
...45 species, Indian and western Pacific oceans and in fresh waters of Australia and New Guinea; small to medium size.Family Arripidae (Australian salmon)Not related to true salmons of Northern Hemisphere. Rather long, slender body; deeply forked tail; moderately long dorsal fin, a notch between the...
Australian sea lion (mammal)
The Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea) is found along the southern coast of Western Australia into South Australia. Adult males are 2.0–2.5 metres in length and weigh 300 kg, whereas females measure 1.5 metres long and weigh less than 100 kg....
Australian shepherd (breed of dog)
breed of herding dog that, despite its name, was developed in the United States in the late 1800s from dogs brought there by Basque shepherds who had spent time in Australia. One ancestor of the Australian shepherd is the berger de Pyrenees, an outstanding ...
Australian Shield (geological feature, Australia)
...most of the western half of Australia, and the eastern segment of Antarctica are also areas of continental shields. These areas of Precambrian rocks are termed, appropriately, the Indian Shield, the Australian Shield, and the Antarctic Shield....
Australian spiral burrow scorpion (arachnid)
...arachnids, including other scorpions. Less-common but regular prey includes pill bugs, snails, and small vertebrates such as lizards, snakes, and rodents. The only known specialist scorpion is the Australian spiral burrow, or spider-hunting, scorpion (Isometroides vescus), which feeds solely on burrowing spiders....
Australian Stock Exchange Limited (Australian organization)
...companies and money-market corporations, and some foreign banks. In the late 19th century, stock exchanges developed in each state capital. Stocks, options, and securities are now traded by the Australian Stock Exchange Limited (ASX), formed in 1987 to amalgamate the six state stock exchanges, via an all-electronic system....
Australian tea tree
Many species are called tea trees: the Australian tea tree (Leptospermum laevigatum), growing to a height of 6 m (20 feet), has shredding bark and white flowers. It is used for reclamation planting and erosion control on sandy soils. The woolly tea tree (L. lanigerum) differs in having fuzzy young shoots. The shrubby New Zealand tea tree, or manuka (L. scoparium), has......
Australian terrier (breed of dog)
breed of dog that originated as an Australian farm dog. First exhibited in 1885 as the Australian rough terrier, the perky breed can be traced back to an extinct British breed, the broken-haired, black-and-tan Old English terrier, but it includes in its heritage a number of other terriers, among them possibly the Dandie Dinmont, Skye, ...
Australian treecreeper (bird)
...in strength. Clavicles well developed. All with same complex of syringeal muscles, with only minor variations.Family Climacteridae (Australian treecreepers)Small, creeperlike climbing birds, 12.5 to 17.5 cm (5 to 7 inches); of uncertain ancestry and affinities. Legs short; toes long, claws long, curved,....
Australian trumpet (mollusk)
largest living snail, a species of conch....
Australian umbrella tree (plant)
The most common schefflera is the Australian umbrella tree (S. actinophylla, or Brassaia actinophylla), which can grow up to 12 m. It is widely used as a landscape tree in Hawaii and other warm areas and is also one of the most popular indoor plants around the world. A cultivated dwarf species, called Hawaiian schefflera (B. arboricola), is more compact in habit and has......
Australian War Memorial (museum, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia)
Other museums commemorate events, as do the Australian War Memorial in Canberra or the Imperial War Museum, London; both are military museums, members of a category that grew after World War I. Another development in the 20th-century history museum has been the maritime museum. Like other types of museums, it may be housed in historic buildings, as at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich,......