Powderfinger ProfileEskimo Joe’s Kav Temperley is nominated for WA’s Australian of the Year.
He was chosen for a number of reasons – his skills and long-time success in the music industry, and his mentoring of new talent through his Fremantle studio and songwriting camps.
He co-created ArtsiX, bringing together 80+ musicians and visual artists, staging exhibitions seen by tens of thousands. He also advocated for songwriters' rights before WA Parliament.
Kav has also supported causes including White Ribbon, Close The Gap, and bushfire relief.
While we got our fingers crossed for Kav, we look at ten acts also worthy of being music’s Australians of the Year, based on lengthy achievements, skills, achievements in 2026, and their philanthropy.
Powderfinger
The return of Powderfinger promises to be one of the most anticipated Australian tours … since Cold Chisel’s The Big Five-0 two years ago.
In fact, that Powderfinger members sitting through Chisel’s shows was a reason why they wanted to feel that elation at their own shows.
The expanded 2027 reunion shows have matched the 300,000 figures Powderfinger pulled on their farewell tour 17 years ago.
They’re not too far behind Cold Chisel’s biggest tour, Light The Nitro, which moved over 300,000 tix for 36 shows.
AC/DC sold 320,000 on Power Up. But the Black Ice local run of 650,000 tickets remains the biggest by an Australian act. John Farnham did 460,000 over 96 shows on The Last Time trek.
Powderfinger’s return was great timing. It promises scenes with original fans joined by a new generation of fans. As was said about Oasis’ return: “It’s parents and kids creating new memories together. It’s proof that great music doesn’t age, only amplifies and multiplies.”
With Oasis, two shows in Cardiff, Wales sold £7,000 (AU$14,400) of beer on average. 810,000 pints were pulled over 48 hours. Let’s see if Powderfinger fans are as thirsty.
Rumours have been floating the past 12 months about Powderfinger also playing at the 2032 Games. They haven’t confirmed or rejected this.
Good Causes
The 2027 tour is a boost for homeless charity Mission Australia, who get a share of profits. The band already gave it a huge upfront donation this year.
During their 2020 virtual reality One Night Lonely reunion shows, the band raised $450,000 to $500,000 for Beyond Blue. They also donated to Support Act for emergency health and financial payments, Youngcare, and Lookout 07.
Dom Dolla
A few years back, Dom Dolla told DJ Mag, “I never saw my career getting this far. I’ve sort of smashed the goals that I’ve set for myself over the years.”
He’s kept reinventing those ambitions – in doing so, changed what EDM should mean and to how many – without a trace of his getting jaded.
Take the September 24 show at the Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, coming on the heels of four nominations for the ARIA awards. He was premiering an astounding new production – “This is now “the world’s biggest nightclub!” – which even he was astounded by.
Throughout the two-hour show he’d shout out, “This is absolutely fucking mental, I love it!” and “This is absolutely fucking insane!” Each time the crowd cheered him on, knowing he was creating history.
At one point the bass dropped out for 20 minutes. When it came back on again, they cheered him on. All except the disgruntled ones who left early and stated on social media they wanted their money back.
Through 2026 Dolla played all around the world, including Creamfields and Sziget and a June 5 to August 28 Wednesday night Ibiza residency. He dropped more tracks and remixes.
He launched his own record label Good Fortune Records based on his parties to profile unknown acts. In the DJ Mag countdown, he went up three spots to #38. He avidly reads poetry to heighten his songwriting skills.
Next February he plays the largest EDM show in New Zealand at Pukekawa/Auckland Domain to 40,000.
Good Causes
Dom partners with Clean Beats to offset environmental footprint of large music events, and uses ethical ticketing platform Humanitix which donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to education and healthcare for disadvantaged children.
At his Marvel Stadium show, he and manager James Fava asked VIP guests to donate to Music Victoria, raising $653,864 in the process.
Missy Higgins
By her own admission, Missy Higgins no longer means much on commercial radio or streaming playlists. But that hasn’t affected a remarkable bond with her audience and the way she continues to reflect their lives.
Two years ago she did a two-part national tour which combined the 20th anniversary of her debut this-is-what-I want-life-to-be The Sound Of White and her post-marriage picking-up-the-pieces The Second Act.
Tickets were snapped up in a minute, according to Frontier Touring, more dates were stitched on. It went over the 100,000+ mark.
In 2026, Higgins continued to thrive in the spotlight. She co-headlined Red Hot Summer tour with Paul Kelly, and headlined a The Point concert series on a floating stage in Sydney.
In June she winged her way to the Maldives with her band, for a week-long residency at sunset. She was Sunday headliner of Queensland’s Savannah In The Round festival.
The hints are she’ll work on new material through 2027. Right now she’s making her best ever music. She’s booked for February’s Party In The Paddock in Tasmania.
Good Causes
Higgins supports humanitarian, environmental, indigenous, and animal welfare charities. She served as an ambassador for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and has done benefits for HEAL (QLD) for its arts therapy for young people from refugee backgrounds.
She worked as an ambassador for First Nation’s Children’s Ground. Her tours are carbon-neutral working with Green Music Australia, and done benefits for breast cancer awareness and PETA.
Tigerlily
When Sydney DJ Tigerlily is asked to describe what it’s like being on stage, she uses phrases like “amazingly exhilarating”, “a kick of adrenaline and positive energy”, and a feeling that cannot be replaced – “especially coming off stage after you’ve just smashed a set and the crowd has just really reacted well.”
This year the self-confessed adrenaline junkie was voted Australia’s No. 1 female DJ for third consecutive year. Back then, Dara Kristen Hayes did a year’s dentistry study before she realised she hated it. A win in a DJ competition gave her a residency at Sydney club Soho.
Through 2026, she was invited back to Tomorrowland, gigging through Australia and New Zealand, mixed her two passions of music and running by playing the Sydney Marathon, and got involved in the Nescafé espresso concentrate remix challenge.
All this when she was expecting her third child with DJ and husband Scott Lawson, after Lando (born 2023) and Porter (late 2024/early 2025).
Good Causes
She has a long standing partnership with Lifeline Australia, donates to the anti-cyber bullying work of headspace, lends her support to PETA, Animal Liberation Victoria and The Coalition For The Protection of Racehorses, and volunteers at animal sanctuaries.
Baker Boy
2026 was a year that Baker Boy reignited with the First Australians community.
He blitzed the National Indigenous Music Awards taking out album of the year for DJANDJAY, while Thick Skin (featuring Thelma Plum, Emma Donovan, Kee’ahn, and Jada Weazel) trumped the song and video categories.
DJANDJAY was named after his late momu (grandmother). In accepting the award, he described her as “an exciting person who got people dancing…had no shame, and spoke her mind. I learned that from her.”
These were qualities that the Yolŋu rapper and dancer superstar keeps hammering away to younger generations of First Australians.
When the Fresh Prince of Arnhem Land headlined the 26th Garma Festival at the sacred Gullkula site before 5,000 people, there were extraordinary scenes of mobbing. What should have been a five-minute walk would last an hour as kids jumped over him and wanted to talk.
“I instil in them the same values my grandmother did in me.”
It was a flashback to 2017, when he worked in a remote community “where I was teaching young kids to write and make music in their own language, which kind of inspired me.”
Up for five ARIAs this year, it remains to be seen if Baker Boy matches the five wins he had at the 2022 awards including album of the year for Gela. When he got his Order of Australia (OAM), one of the citations was for bringing Yolŋu Matha language and culture to the mainstream.
Good Causes
He remains a passionate advocate for First Nations and anti-systematic racism initiatives (including headlining the Progress 2026 Summit and Black Lives Matter), is ambassador for Support Act, supports the Indigenous Emerging Business Forum to build First Nation grassroots and women’s empowerment, and visits remote settlements to combat “shame” among the young.
Tina Arena
In late 2025, at Canberra’s National Portrait Gallery, Tina Arena was honoured with a commissioned portrait by photographer Georges Antoni. Three features that stood out: her strength, her character and her grace.
It didn’t include the fact Arena also swears like a sailor, is forthright to a fault, and, with a wild gleeful cackle, calls herself “a loud mouthed wog”.
The Canberra event set up how 2026 and 2027 would be one which would celebrate 50 years since she stepped into the spotlight as a pre-teener on TV’s Young Talent Time.
A tour of Europe including a return to France where she once lived. At that time she was long-term partner of French artist Vincent Mancini with whom they had a son Gabriel.
She made French-English albums which went multi-platinum, was cited on TV by Celine Dion as a personal hero, and in 2011 received one of the country’s highest honours, the Knighthood of the Order of National Merit.
Next August as reported in The Music, she does the 5.0 Residency Tour at the new Melbourne Crown LIVE.
In recent years, she’s been frank about creating a career as a woman whom the music industry thought had the nerve to become middle aged.
This year she set up her own label Positive Dream Records. Its debut release was a six-track EP Way Of The World on which she collaborated with producer François Tétaz and pianist composer Luke Howard.
It included two covers, Max Q’s Way Of The World and New Order’s True Faith.
Also making a splash was her career-defining documentary Tina Arena: Unravel Me, which had its premiere at the Melbourne Film Festival.
Directed by Adrian Russell Wills and written and produced by Jessica Carrera, it was a classily-made, incredibly honest work. Its screenings were accompanied by live Q&A sessions.
Ever the role model for the current and next generation of singer songwriters, she said, “What's exciting is there is still much more to come. The next artistic chapter is about freedom, creativity and sharing my truth and experience on my own terms.”
Good Causes
Arena supports Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, National Breast Cancer Foundation, Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, various humanitarian groups, is a patron of Barnardo Australia which works at protecting children in care, and is a patron of Soldier On which supports war veterans.
RÜFÜS DU SOL
RÜFÜS DU SOL more than kicking up the ante for themselves. They’ve rewritten the rules for the $15.1 billion EDM scene worldwide, on how underground sounds can translate to stadium super-size without losing the mojo.
Most significantly, their success – among many other Australians, of course – transformed how Australia is perceived in the world. For ages, it was the source of hard rock and pop sounds. Now it’s the third-largest EDM market in the world and a country where global music executives keep an eye on for new blood.
In America, they were the first EDM outfit to headline Los Angeles’ Rose Bowl to 90,000, and to play four nights at Madison Square Gardens.
On the Inhale/Exhale World Tour, RÜFÜS DU SOL set new milestones with shifting 750,000 tix, reaching 1.5 million punters including at festivals, and breaking the US$100 million box office figure with $158 million. In Australia, where the act is up for four ARIA wins, their last run generated 180,000 ticket sales with multiple-nights in some cities.
Good Causes
They contribute to Australian Red Cross, RSPCA NSW, CCF Wildlife Recovery Fund, and Saving Grace NC to support dog rescue and adoption.
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Minogue kept herself in the spotlight through 2026, a year where her current fortune was estimated to have reached $120 million.
The three-part Netflix documentary Kylie triggered a 25% jump in back catalogue. At the same time, in August, four of her better selling albums were reissued on vinyl. In November, her best selling album Fever – at sales of 12.5 million – is getting the same treatment.
There was a Madonna collaboration with Love Sensation, and a roundly-hailed 20-minute pre-game appearance at the AFL Grand Final before 100,000 spectators and a viewing audience of 1.83 million. The game itself had a reach of 6.5 million across Seven Network and 7plus Sport.
Minogue’s skills as an entrepreneur continued. Her fragrance range now has 15 items. The wine range has sold 127 million bottles. The Prosecco Rose has 30% of the rose market in the UK, where she is considered the most powerful female in the wine sector.
Good Causes
Minogue supports breast cancer awareness through Pink Ribbon and Copafeel, a number of global AIDS initiatives, LGBTQIA+ groups, and paediatric health programs at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
A range of organisations protecting vulnerable children get her support, including the Small Steps Project for those living in rubbish dumps.
Paul Kelly
While Russell Morris and Daryl Braithwaite were drawing the curtain on their music careers, Paul Kelly was delightedly celebrating his 70th birthday with the 70 album issued last year.
“Seventy is a great number,” he suggested. “It’s a biblical number. For a long time it was the expected span of a person’s life.”
During an artist-in-conversation chat with ABC journalist Sarah Kanowski at BIGSOUND ‘26, he came across as someone who was still eager to continue creating and be part of the writer’s role of defining Australia’s cultural identity.
An advantage is that he still feels like a beginner, that he does not have a set formula or how-to manual, and that an idea for a song comes after a long period during which “nothing happens”.
Asked what he would have done if “the whole music thing hadn’t panned out”, he responded, “I could have been a sports writer about football and test cricket. Yeah, maybe!”
In 2026, Kelly remained active on the live scene. Between January and March, he co-headlined the Red Hot Summer Tour with Missy Higgins.
In spring, 40 years after writing From St. Kilda To Kings Cross, he returned to Kings Cross after what he estimated to be a 30-year absence for a free Sunday afternoon pop-up show for 250 punters with nephew Dan Kelly at Potts Point Hotel.
On the night before his BIGSOUND keynote, he played an intimate show to 350 at Brisbane’s Lefty’s Music Hall.
Good Causes
His issues include youth cancer and healthcare, children caught in war, Support Act, First Nations rights and social justice, East Timor, drought and rural relief.
He also partners with environmental and climate action groups such as Groundswell Giving and World Wildlife Fund.
Tame Impala/Kevin Parker
Tame Impala mastermind Kevin Parker started out the year with another Grammy win in the Dance/Electronic category for Endless Summer, and goes into the ARIA awards with eight nominations. An Australian tour through spring was a sell-out.
Dracula was a fully certified global hit, including eleven weeks at No. 1 on the US Pop Single Charts. Catalogue tracks as Let It Happen crossed 900 million streams on Spotify.
Good Causes
Getting support are a number of climate action groups including Reverb for touring greening. Tame Impala once donated $300,000 to bushfire relief. One effective idea is donating surplus backstage meals to groups such as the Salvation Army. On their European tour last year, that translated to 1,100 meals.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
