5 March – 25-year-old Barry Rodrick is found guilty by a jury of murdering 12-year-old Monica Ann Schofield near the Sydney suburb of Hammondville on 17 June 1963 and is sentenced to life imprisonment.[11][12]
2 April – 49-year-old UWA lecturer Maurice Bernard Benn is found guilty by a jury of murdering his four-year-old son Bernard Wolfgang Benn and is sentenced to death.[15] His sentence is later commuted to ten years imprisonment.[16] Instead of condemning his actions, the university instead offers their support to Benn vowing to offer continued employment upon his release from prison.[17]
8 April – The 191 miles (307 km) Moonie oil pipeline to Lytton Oil Refinery opens
21 April –
Hanna Neumann is named professor and chair of pure mathematics at the Australian National University in Canberra, becoming the first female professor of pure mathematics at an Australian university and the first woman to be appointed to a chair at ANU.[19]
Judy Hanrahan becomes the first female bank teller appointed by the Bank of NSW since World War II, taking up the position at the Collins Street branch in Melbourne.[19]
14 May – A Royal Australian Navy helicopter with a crew of four onboard makes a forced landing on a sports oval in the Wollongong suburb of Cringila after its engine cuts out flying over the Port Kembla steelworks.[22]
13 June – Two gasfitters and a co-proprietor of a Sydney coffee shop in George Street are killed when a gas pipe ruptured as they were attempting to identify a gas leak in the cellar of the Cuba Coffee Inn.[23] Five others are hospitalised including two ambulance officers while eight others were treated for slight gas poisoning.[23]
4 August – 25-year-old railway porter David Herman Mason is found guilty by a jury of murdering his 15-month-old daughter Rowena Dorelle Mason in Lithgow, New South Wales on 16 April 1964 and is sentenced to life imprisonment.[30]
23 September – The publishers of Sydney's satirical Oz magazine (Richard Neville, Richard Walsh, Martin Sharp and Alfred James) are all convicted with printing an obscene publication.[34] Neville and Walsh are both sentenced to six months gaol, Sharp is sentenced to four months gaol while James is fined £50.[34] However, they successfully appeal their sentences and have their convictions quashed on 11 February 1966.[35]
1 August – The launch of ATV-0 marks the birth of the third commercial television network, now known as Network Ten.[45]
3 October – Singer Johnny Chester hosts a new show on Melborne's ABV-2 called Teen Scene, which also features his backing group The Chessmen as the house band.[46]
20 October – Police drama Homicide premieres on Melbourne's HSV-7, beginning a 12-year run setting the pace for Australian television drama.[47]
^"Another 23 Army men going to Vietnam". The Sydney Morning Herald. 8 July 1964. p. 1. Retrieved 11 August 2024. Today's statement names the Australian instructor killed in Vietnam as Warrant-Officer (II) Kevin George Conway, 35, single, of Beechmere, 30 miles north of Brisbane.
