May: Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 83, announces he will become a Muslim to marry Fatimah al Sultana, 24, the masseuse on his private jet and a princess of the Saudi royal family. Described as ''stunningly beautiful with a mind of her own'', Fatimah will be the fourth Mrs Murdoch after a magnificent wedding at the al-Haram Mosque in Mecca in August. News of Murdoch's conversion causes panic in 317 television and newspaper offices around the world. Veteran New Newscorp commentator Andrew Bolt is the first to recover, deftly informing baffled readers of Melbourne's Herald-Sun that Islam is a religion of peace and love cruelly slandered by the Christian West for centuries.

June: Reacting at last to yet another child sex abuse scandal, Cardinal George Pell, 73, resigns as Sydney's Catholic archbishop and joins the Vatican bureaucracy to head the Sanctum Officium Mulierum Obsequium, the Holy Office for the Obedience of Women. Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne orders Australian schoolchildren to learn the names of the kings and queens of England. ''In my day we could list them all, from Alfred the Great to our own dear Queen,'' he tells broadcaster Alan ''Soho'' Jones. In Super Rugby, the NSW Waratahs vow ''to get the little things right'' after a record 124-3 loss to the ACT Brumbies.

July: The Senate sets up an Un-Australian Activities Committee to expose traitors, terrorists, homosexual agitators and bestial sex perverts, the committee chairman, South Australian Senator Cory Bernardi, urging loyal Australians to secretly report suspects by name. ''Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear,'' he says. The ABC announces that British comic Stephen Fry will star in a "Fortnight of Fry Down Under," two weeks of programs in which the much-loved funster will host every ABC TV show from Giggle and Hoot on ABC4Kids to News Breakfast and Q&A.

August: Addressing a lavish banquet in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, Tony Abbott assures a bemused Chinese Premier Li Keqiang that ''a feed of sweet and sour takeaway was, um, a highlight of my childhood on, ah, Sydney's North Shore.''. But he warns of growing tensions between ''the Goodies and Baddies'' of the world. ''And we know who they are,'' Abbott tells Li. The Australian dollar plunges to a low of US48¢.

September: Newly married Muslim media mogul Rupert Murdoch tweets that ''Israeli oppressors must immediately quit illegal settlements on Palestinian lands in West Bank and Golan Heights''. New Newscorp columnists Miranda Devine, Janet Albrechtsen, Gerard Henderson, Greg Sheridan and Piers Akerman hail Murdoch's ''bold new Middle East peace plan''. The government's chief business adviser, Maurice Newman, says the science is ''still unsettled'' on whether the Earth revolves around the sun. Former PM Kevin Rudd denies he plans to challenge Ban Ki-moon for the job of UN secretary-general. ''Moony has my absolute support, now and for the foreseeable future,'' he says.