[4][5] After 55 days on the island, Kristie Bennett was named the "Sole Survivor" and awarded the grand prize over former professional cricketer Lee Carseldine by a jury vote of 8–1.

[7] This season of Australian Survivor introduced several elements from international editions of Survivor, including: hidden immunity idols, small trinkets that, when played on a castaway after the votes were cast at Tribal Council but before they were read, negated all votes cast against them at that Tribal Council; the ability to prohibit another player from voting at a single Tribal Council, as offered during the season's Survivor Auction; and Exile Beach, where a small number of castaways were banished to a separate beach for a predetermined amount of time, and given minimal tools for survival.

[11][12] The season was rumored to be filmed in Samoa as early as March,[13] and was officially confirmed on 9 May by LaPaglia in a radio interview on the Hamish & Andy show.

After winning the reward challenge on Day 19, Saanapu earned the right to redistribute the 18 remaining castaways into two tribes of nine, and Aganoa was officially disbanded.

On Day 12, a Fake Double Tribal Council consisting of Vavau and Saanapu occurred; Conner and Nick were voted out, but instead of leaving the game, were switched to the other tribe and they brought Sam and Tegan with them respectively.

The game became one-sided after the swap, as not only did the stronger Saanapu tribe dominate in challenges but Phoebe's idol plays ousted the two strongest members of Vavau in Rohan and Craig.

After a fake Tribal Council spared Kristie, Phoebe's ally whom she threw under the bus to save herself, Brooke further decimated Vavau by adding Sue to her tribe.

At Final Tribal Council, despite Lee having more control of the game, Kristie's underdog status and the fruition of her floater strategy resulted in her receiving 8 of the 9 jury votes and becoming the "Sole Survivor".

The tribe was unable to build a fire or shelter before nightfall; they tried sleeping on the sand near the ocean for warmth but were woken up due to the high tide, which washed away their entire camp.

Saanapu and Vavau won the challenge, earning an additional reward of fire in the form of flint, while Aganoa lost after Des and Kat struggled on the puzzle.

Back at the Saanapu camp, Peter considered quitting the game for being a liability to his tribe; while Kylie decided to grant his wish, Bianca tried to recruit Conner to vote out Flick.

After Saanapu had returned from Tribal Council, Peter was upset with his tribemates for not voting him out due to his poor health, while outsider Kylie lamented the loss of her closest ally, Bianca.

Stuck in the middle of both alliances, El and Phoebe weighed their options between eliminating Kat — a poor challenge performer — or Rohan, who was perceived as untrustworthy.

After Tribal Council, Matt felt secure in his position within Saanapu and happy that his alliance with Brooke, Flick and Kylie was following his voting strategies.

At the new Saanapu, the alliance of Matt, Flick and Brooke regrouped and made the plan to keep Sam, Kylie and Nick close so that they could first remove Jennah-Louise and establish control of the tribe from there.

Jennah-Louise was very unhappy about her new tribe and had trouble adjusting to her position of power in Vavau to her new place at Saanapu, and guessed correctly that she was brought over because she was an easy vote-out.

At Vavau, Craig began his search for the hidden immunity idol while Phoebe was working really hard, but unsuccessfully, on keeping Kat close so that she wouldn't flip.

Rohan also discussed with Sue and Conner and revealed that a hidden immunity idol is in contention and that he has intended for a long time to eliminate Kat.

At Vavau, Andrew worked on trying to make sure Conner didn't flip over the side of the Aganoa girls while Craig searched, again unsuccessfully, for the hidden immunity idol.

Kate and Craig, however, became concerned at the weakness in Vavau and thought about turning on Andrew due to his lack of performance in challenges and work around camp.

Kate gave an emotional reassurance to Conner that her move was not an attempt to save Phoebe and Kristie but purely an action against Andrew to strengthen their tribe, and apologised for not discussing it more with him.

Effective teamwork, as well as good defending by Sam and running by Kylie, led Saanapu to a sixth consecutive challenge victory and a sending Vavau to their fourth Tribal Council in a row.

Sue said her goodbyes and left with Brooke to join the ten-member Saanapu, while the now four-member tribe of Phoebe, Kristie, Conner and Kate headed back to Vavau.

Vavau took an early lead in the challenge, but this was closed up by Jennah-Louise and in the end Matt managed to finish the puzzle before Kate to extend Saanapu's winning streak to nine.

After Tribal Council, El, Flick and Brooke discussed their strategy with nine players left and wondered how long they should wait before voting out Sam and Lee.

While the winning team enjoyed their reward, Jennah-Louise tried talking to Flick back at camp about whether she could truly trust Brooke and El given their closeness to Sam and Lee.

Paranoia spread through the tribe, and Sam and Brooke started to think about removing Lee and El as both physical and jury threats to instead reach the final four with Flick and Matt.

After Tribal Council, the slowly splintering alliances were discussed, and in the end, Flick chose to align with the original Aganoa members of Kristie, Lee and El to blindside her oldest friend Brooke.

The whole tribe comforted her and all said that they were proud of her performance so far, but they also became worried about whether her emotions would make her unpredictable, and therefore Flick chose to inform Lee and El about Matt's strategising at the reward.

Notes Ratings data is from OzTAM and represents the viewership from the 5 largest Australian metropolitan centres (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide).