Sydney electronics entrepreneur Dick Smith responded to the letter, and offered to sponsor a visit to Australia by James Randi, the principal investigator for the American-based Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), now known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), part of the non-profit organisation Center for Inquiry (CFI), which are joint publishers of the Skeptical Inquirer.

A number of contenders, largely water diviners came forward, but all failed to prove their claims in front of independent observers.

[9] The Australian Skeptics formed in 1980 out of this event, with the original purpose of continuing to test claims of the paranormal, with committee members Mark Plummer (president), James Gerrand (secretary), Joe Rubinstein (treasurer), and Allan Christophers,[5][4][10][11][12] as well as Bill Cook, John Crellin, Logan Elliot, Peter Kemeny, Loris Purcell, and Mike Wilton.

Very soon after the original formation of the Australian Skeptics in Victoria, Barry Williams from Sydney, New South Wales (NSW), responded to a call from Dick Smith seeking interest for new members.

[5] The NSW committee included Barry Williams (president), Tim Mendham (secretary/treasurer), Mel Dickson, Dick Champion, Jean Whittle and others.

[15] ASI still operates today and is responsible for several national activities, such as the publication of The Skeptic magazine and coordination of awards (listed below) and the annual conventions.

[17][15] With these funds the organisation established the "Australian Skeptics Science and Education Foundation", tasked to expose "irrational activities and pseudoscience and to encourage critical thinking and the scientific view".

This position is answerable to the ASI committee, and traditionally manages accounts, queries from the public and media, editing The Skeptic, and various sundry tasks.

[55][74] The award trophy is a piece of gopher wood, supposedly from Noah's Ark, upon which is affixed a spoon rumoured to have been used at the Last Supper.

[78] ∞ In 2012 the Australian Vaccination Network was ordered by the New South Wales Office of Fair Trading to change its name within two months.

Since its foundation in 1980, Australian Skeptics has been offering a cash prize to anyone who can prove they have psychic or paranormal powers and is able to demonstrate their ability under proper observing conditions.

[14] This challenge is now coordinated by ASI and the prize money is backed by the Australian Skeptics Science and Education Foundation.

ASI states that should any contender pass the challenge, and be awarded the prize, they want to tell the world and give the claimant proper recognition.

Stear states that the site is meant for educational purposes as well as to illustrate the problems with young Earth creationism.

[199][200] In June 2005, members of the creationist group Answers in Genesis – Australia debated a team from the Australian Skeptics online on Margo Kingston's web diary section of the Sydney Morning Herald website.

[201] In 1984 the Australian Skeptics brought magician Bob Steiner to Australia to pose as a psychic under the name "Steve Terbot".

[4] Later in February 1988 Richard Carleton, a reporter on the TV show 60 Minutes, brought James Randi back to Australia to oversee an elaborate hoax involving a fictional character named Carlos who was reported to be a 2,000-year-old entity who had last appeared in the body of a 12-year-old boy in Venezuela in 1900 was now manifesting through a young American art student named José Alvarez.

[203][204][205] There was outrage amongst the Australian media, to which Randi responded by pointing out that none of the journalists had bothered with even the most elementary fact-checking measures.

[9] Prior to the testing, the diviners agreed that the experimental conditions were suitable, however, when they were unable to display any ability, they changed their positions and blamed various external influences for preventing their success.

[17] In 1983 Ian Bryce and Mark Plummer investigated a patent filed for a "water powered car", designed by Stephen Horvath.

[16][15] The publicity from these demonstrations led to other forms of media, including the Australian Penthouse magazine publishing the story.

[16][209] The Victorian Skeptics have demonstrated several times how firewalking or lying on a bed of nails can be achieved without any harm to the person.

Several reviewers, including 2 nuclear physicists, had previously observed the device in operation and found it worth more study.

[5] Both Karen Stollznow[216] and Steve Roberts[217] were editors briefly in 2009, until editing was handed back to Tim Mendham in June 2009, and with whom it remains today.

[5] Ken Smith and Martin Bridgestock were both awarded the first life memberships in the Australian Skeptics at the 1986 convention for this service.

[5] During the creationism in science classes debate, the Australian Skeptics attended a talk by a creationist geologist and collected various leaflets at that event.

[222][223] The Imaginary Friends Show is a twice-weekly panel style podcast covering topics including science, skepticism, secularism, religion and politics, as well as irrational, illogical and dangerous posed beliefs.

Each episode includes a round-up of LGBT world news and a movie review, along with a skeptical analysis of an issue related to pseudoscience, the paranormal or religion.

In it Kylie Sturgess discusses, among other things, psychology, philosophy, ethics, science, critical thinking, literacy and education.