In the auditions, which had been held in November and December 2005, producers asked for contestants who were "smart, strong, and looking for a fight".

In previous series of Big Brother Australia, viewers could only vote to evict the nominated housemates they wanted to leave the house.

As with some previous seasons of Big Brother Australia, a new house with an original layout was constructed for this series.

One of the twists of Big Brother 2006, promoted in advertising hyperbole as "Australia's World First", was that housemates Karen and Krystal are mother and daughter.

They were given the mission to keep this a secret for the opportunity to be entered into the game as individual housemates each with the chance of winning Big Brother 2005.

Network Ten discontinued Adults Only early due to pressure from politicians, with the final episode broadcast on 19 June 2006.

After Ashley Cox and John Bric were removed after the controversial "turkey slapping incident"[6] replacement housemates Max and Chris were added.

While all former 2006 Big Brother housemates and intruders were all reunited for the 2006 Finale, Ashley and John were not invited to attend and participate.

Each week the housemates compete in Friday Night Live (FNL)—the winner of which wins a special privilege during Nominations.

Michael McCoy (born 16 June 1980) is a political science student from Sydney, New South Wales.

He failed his first mission within minutes of being assigned the task, which was to secretly spill water on a bed that was occupied by two housemates.

When asked about "The Gretel Incident", Michael suggested that Friday Night Live and Big Brother UpLate host Mike Goldman, or Friday Night Live co-host and former housemate Ryan Fitzgerald, would be better hosts of Big Brother than Gretel Killeen.

As has become custom over the history of the show, Michael appeared along with all the other 2006 housemates on the Rove Live episode of the week of the final.

As soon as he was asked to speak, he immediately questioned why John and Ashley were not present, and attempted to get the host to bring them on.

Kept hidden from them was the fact that the two housemates with the most votes, Anna and Camilla, were not evicted; but were sent to the Revenge Room to secretly cause havoc on the house.

Based on the results of Day 36's Truth, Lies, Eviction show, Big Brother selected five housemates that he felt weren't contributing to the house, who were intentionally acting in a reserved manner to avoid conflict and thereby avoid being nominated, or flying Under the Radar.

The housemates Big Brother felt were "flying under the radar" were Ashley, Claire, Gaelan, John and Krystal.

Max entered during the special one-hour show, where he posed as Darren in a pirate costume, quickly being identified.

The housemates were told by Big Brother that there would be no Rewards Room, Three Boxes, or Three Point Twist to compete for; and no chores to allocate; but would instead be given the opportunity to win any amount up to $416,000 to add to the prize fund of $200,000, depending on what percentage of the games they successfully completed.

Ryan Fitzgerald, co-host of Friday Night Live, was involved in one of the games, as an "Ex-Professional Football Player".

At the end of the games, the housemates were told that they added $311,000 to the prize fund, giving the winner the opportunity to win $511,000, less all the fines the winning housemate had incurred during their stay in the Big Brother House as they were all repeatedly warned that their fine money could never be regained.

While they were in the Diary Room on their date, David's, Jamie's and Max's mothers; and Camilla's best friend, had entered the House to cook food and leave items that the housemates would recognise.

[22] Because of the incident, Big Brother – Adults Only ended its run after politicians warned Network Ten that its screening of the show could harm its push for media reforms.

[27] Following the removal of the two offenders the show continued as normal, with housemate Gaelan evicted via the usual procedure the following day.

In an interview, Gaelan claimed that the Big Brother producers had not advised housemates on how to deal with sexual tension.

[28] On the night of 3 July, Network Ten broadcast an interview with the ejected housemates John and Ashley speaking to Big Brother host Gretel Killeen.

It was found that Big Brother itself could not be penalised as the footage was never broadcast by Network Ten but was seen only via web streaming, and the Internet falls outside ACMA's authority.

[21] Presenting the ACMA report, Communications Minister Helen Coonan said that legislation to broaden the authority's regulatory powers to cover the Internet and mobile phone broadcasts, would be introduced into Parliament as soon as possible.

"[32][33] After the commercial break, Killeen apologised to McCoy, stating that she gets offended when housemates claim that the producers "edit material".

At first, the show declined to air the footage of the alleged kiss, but later released the clip after objection from Michael McCoy and Big Brother fans.