THE MAJOR STORIES IN EACH STATE IN 2015
NSW - BAIRD AVOIDS TRIPPING ON POLES AND WIRES
The mere mention of privatising poles and wires has tripped up plenty of NSW premiers before, but 2015 was the year Magic Mike Baird proved it could be done.
The member for Manly told voters he wanted to partially privatise the state's electricity infrastructure - and promptly won an election.
And he did it even after admitting in a pre-poll debate with Labor rival Luke Foley that he had "no plan B" to turn to in the event he kept the premiership but failed to push the privatisation laws through parliament.
In the end Mr Baird made good on plan A, but his government must now secure a palatable power lessee and deliver on a string of ambitious infrastructure promises.
Throw in a potentially damning and long-delayed report from the ICAC, and the premier will have his work cut out for him if he wants to keep the honeymoon going in 2016.
VIC - THE ROAD THAT NEVER WAS
It wasn't meant to cost a cent in compensation, but dumping Melbourne's East West Link road tunnel has so far set Victorians back more than $1.1 billion.
After Labor took power in November 2014 it negotiated with the tunnel's builders to get out of the deal.
The government soon had to replace its optimistic cost-free predictions with cold, hard cash.
Meanwhile, Melbourne's inner north faces at least another decade of gridlock as a major truck and transport route across the city snakes down to a single lane.
QLD - ALP MAY BE BACK ON SHAKY GROUND
Just three years after the Liberal National Party stormed to the most emphatic victory in Queensland's political history, the LNP are back on the opposition benches.
In one of Australia's biggest election shocks, Labor rolled Campbell Newman and formed a minority government with the support of veteran independent Peter Wellington.
Mr Newman had left Labor with just seven MPs, a mere netball team, in 2012. But his confrontational approach, hard-line law-and-order reforms, and asset-sales platform made voters abandon the LNP.
Annastacia Palaszczuk - running a modest, policy-light campaign which has continued in government - became the most unlikely of premiers.
Despite several scandals involving disendorsed MP Billy Gordon, and dramas surrounding Rick Williams and Jo-Ann Miller, Ms Palaszczuk remains twice as popular as rival Lawrence Springborg.
Still, the ALP will start 2016 on shaky ground as they've been reluctant to make tough calls, taken a hit in the polls and rely on Gordon's tarnished vote to rule.
SA - STATE ON FIRE
Two bushfires tested the resolve of many South Australians in 2015.
The first in January raged through the Adelaide Hills, scorching 13,000 hectares of scrub and forest, destroying 27 homes and injuring 134 people.
In November, another major fire erupted north of Adelaide. Fanned by strong winds it swept across 82,000 hectares of largely cropping land as it claimed two lives and destroyed close to 500 buildings.
The debate raged all year on where the nation's next fleet of submarines should be built.
The South Australian government says Adelaide is the obvious location and wants a commitment from the commonwealth to build 12 subs as well as the promised new fleet of navy frigates.
The federal government has taken bids from groups in Japan, France and Germany to build the subs but will not make a decision on the number or the location until 2016.
SA has, however, firmed as the likely site of a proposed nuclear waste dump with three short-listed locations and a premier open to the idea.
The federal government short-listed six sites - two west of Whyalla and one north of Port Augusta in SA, one site in southeast Queensland, one southeast of Alice Springs and one in central west NSW.
The government will name its preferred site after next year's federal election.
TAS - FATAL CRASH COSTS TOP PROSECUTOR HIS JOB
Almost two years after causing a fatal head-on smash on Tasmania's Midlands Highway the state's director of public prosecutions was sacked from his job as one of the island's top public servants.
Tim Ellis was found guilty of negligent driving and received a suspended jail sentence for his role in the March 2013 smash which killed Launceston woman Natalia Pearn, 27.
The state government dismissed him in January 2015, citing his "misbehaviour".
The case sparked legislative change to the role of DPP, which had previously been a lifetime appointment.
It has been replaced by a 10-year, non-renewable term.
WA - MP DOESN'T LIVE TO SEE ABBOTT UNSEATED
It was entirely fitting the death of federal MP Don Randall set in train the end of Tony Abbott's leadership, given the straight-talking Liberal had only months earlier tried to unseat him as prime minister.
The member for Canning died from a heart attack aged 62 while sitting in his car in Boddington, within his West Australian electorate, in July.
He had, in February, seconded a spill motion by fellow West Australian MP Luke Simpkins against Mr Abbott, which failed to topple him.
The by-election that was triggered by Mr Randall's death was considered a crucial litmus test of Mr Abbott's performance.
But the second spill motion against him in the final days of the Canning campaign - this time by Malcolm Turnbull - took the wind out of that scenario.
The Liberals kept the seat, with controversies surrounding the Afghanistan war service of victor Andrew Hastie washing off the former SAS captain.
NT - A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
This year in Northern Territory politics has been a wild ride, and with an election in 2016, it might just get wilder.
It started with the CLP parliamentary wing voting to axe Chief Minister Adam Giles in a secret midnight coup in February.
But the plot fell apart when Giles refused to go and held on to the top job with his challenger installed as deputy.
Sacked education minister Robyn Lambley quit the party in June, accusing Mr Giles and Treasurer David Tollner of running "a dark, unpleasant, amoral cabal" within the CLP. She was followed a month later by Speaker Kezia Purick, plunging the government into minority.
The government tried to sack Ms Purick as Speaker in another midnight coup in November, but failed when an unknown government MP voted her back in again in a secret ballot.
Labor has so far presented a united front, which included dumping former opposition leader Delia Lawrie when she became compromised earlier this year.
But a lot can change in a day in Territory politics, and with nine months to go until the election, anything could happen.
