In this article
Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →A real auction is judged by one result: the price, and whether the seller took it. An auctioneering competition takes that measure away on purpose. Nobody buys the house, the bids come from people reading a script, and every entrant sells the same imaginary property. What remains is the part of the job that a seller on the footpath cannot easily assess: how the rules were explained, how the questions were answered, how the numbers were handled, how the room was held.
That is why the competitions matter to the profession, and why their rule books are worth reading. They are the nearest thing auctioneers have to a written description of good practice, set by the institutes that represent them. This guide covers the Real Estate Institute of Queensland's Auctioneer of the Year contest, the Australasian Auctioneering Championships that sit above the state contests, and, for comparison, the Victorian and New Zealand contests that feed the same championships. It sets out what each organiser has published about entry, format and judging, and it says plainly where an organiser has published nothing. It is about the events and their criteria, not about the people who win them.
Real Estate Institute of Australia, Australasian Auctioneering Championships page; REIQ Awards for Excellence 2026 nomination book.
Why a mock auction is used at all
Every competition described in the organisers' papers uses a staged sale. The REIQ's report of its 2020 heats, published on 19 February 2020, called the exercise a mock sale: six auctioneers each auctioned the same house in the Brisbane suburb of Windsor. The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ), in the competition information for its 2025 national championships, states the principle in two lines. All competitors in a division auction the same property, and the competitions are pre-scripted so that each competitor meets the same conditions.
Related readOn the rostrum: the auctioneer's legal duties on a Queensland auction dayThe script is what makes the scores comparable. In a live sale one auctioneer may face four keen bidders and another a silent lawn, and no judge could separate skill from luck. With a script, the bids arrive in the same order and at the same awkward amounts for everyone. REINZ's document adds that only bidders appointed by the institute may bid. The Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) says the same of its own bidders in the entry kit for its 2026 senior competition, and asks entrants to conduct the auction as if they were live in the field.
The same kit explains how organisers stop a script from leaking. Where there are several heats, they use different bidding scripts, and competitors are held in what the kit calls a lockdown, with mobile phones, email and text messages prohibited while it lasts.
The REIQ contest: who can enter
In Queensland the competition is part of the REIQ Awards for Excellence. The institute's 2026 nomination book lists two auctioneering categories, and entry to each is by nomination before the competition day.
For Auctioneer of the Year, the book sets three conditions. The entrant must be an individual practising member of the REIQ, must be employed by an REIQ accredited agency when applying, and must hold a current auctioneer's licence. The contest is therefore open only to people already licensed to call a real sale in Queensland.
The second category is Rising Star Auctioneer of the Year. It carries the same three conditions and adds two limits on experience: the entrant must have called no more than 25 live auctions, and must have no more than 18 months of experience as a live auctioneer. The name and the threshold have both moved over time. An REIQ article dated 14 July 2021 described the equivalent award as Novice Auctioneer of the Year, for auctioneers with two years of experience or less. The division exists so that someone in their first seasons is measured against peers and not against people with thousands of calls behind them.
Related readPhone, online and livestream bidding under Queensland auction rulesNominations for the 2026 awards closed at 5pm on Sunday 12 July 2026, according to the nomination book.
What a Queensland entrant has to do
The nomination book is specific about the tasks. Before the bidding starts, a nominee must read the conditions of auction, highlight the clauses in the contract of sale, and answer questions from bidders. Then the auction itself must be conducted in line with the legal requirements. The opening address, which auctioneers call the preamble, and the auction together have to be finished inside a maximum timeframe. The book does not print the number of minutes.
Three things stand out in that list. First, most of it happens before a single bid. The competition weighs the explanation of the terms as heavily as the call, which matches the legal position: in Queensland a buyer at auction has no cooling-off period and normally signs an unconditional contract, as the Queensland Government's page on buying at auction puts it, so what is said before the first bid is the bidder's last chance to understand the deal.
Second, the questions from bidders are part of the test. In a scripted contest these are planted, and they are where an entrant's knowledge of the contract and of Queensland's auction rules is exposed.
Third, legal compliance is written in as a requirement and not as a courtesy. A Queensland entrant is working under the Property Occupations Act 2014 and its regulation, so a slip that would be a breach at a real sale counts against the competitor here as well.
Related readThe reserve price at a Queensland auction: who sets it, who hears itThe REIQ chooses the properties. The nomination book says the homes to be auctioned in the heats and in the final are selected by the institute, so no entrant can rehearse a favourite listing.
Heats, the final and the calendar
The Queensland contest runs in two stages on one day. The 2026 nomination book set the heats and the final for Tuesday 1 September 2026. Every nominee calls in the heats. The final is then judged among a maximum of four nominees, those who received the highest points.
The size of the final has not always been four. The REIQ's February 2020 report recorded six auctioneers in the heats, drawn from Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and Gladstone, and three finalists. That year the final was held separately, on the first day of the institute's 2020 summit.
The awards themselves come later. The nomination book places the 2026 Awards for Excellence gala on Saturday 31 October 2026 at The Star in Brisbane, almost two months after the competition day. An entrant therefore calls in early spring and waits until the end of October for the presentation.
What the nomination book does not contain is a score sheet. It refers to points, and to the highest points deciding the finalists, but it does not publish the headings under which points are awarded or how many each heading carries.
The Australasian championships: where they come from
Above the state contests sits the event the trade calls the Austros. The Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA) describes it on its championships page as two titles conducted jointly with REINZ: the Australasian Auctioneering Championships and the Australasian Novice Auctioneering Championships.
Related readTwo sessions a year: how a Queensland auctioneer stays licensedThe REIA gives the history in two dates. The contest began in 1991 as a competition between Tasmania and Victoria. Other jurisdictions joined over the years, and by 2005, once every Australian state and territory and New Zealand was taking part, it had become an annual championship.
The REIA's page lists those two divisions, senior and novice. It does not describe a schools division, and no schools contest appears in the organiser documents read for this guide, so none is described here.
The 2026 event was hosted in Victoria. The REIV's entry kit placed it at the institute's Melbourne headquarters from 19 to 21 May 2026, and the REIA's page records the gala dinner on 21 May. The same page says the 2027 championships are to be co-hosted with REINZ in Auckland in August 2027.
| Title | Champion | Represented |
|---|---|---|
| Australasian Auctioneering Championships | Greg Brydon, Apollo Auctions | Victoria |
| Australasian Novice Auctioneering Championships | Sharni Bichan | New Zealand |
Real Estate Institute of Australia, championships page, results announced at the gala dinner of 21 May 2026.
Who qualifies for the Austros
Nobody enters the Austros directly. According to the REIA, the state and territory competitions held before the event each year decide who competes at the Australasian level. The detail of each jurisdiction's allocation is set out in the feeder competitions' own papers, and the three read for this guide do not give the same number.
In Victoria, the REIV's 2026 entry kit says the winner and the runner-up of the senior competition represent the state. In Queensland, the REIQ's 2020 report said the winner and the runner-up gained entry to that year's Australasian championships, which were to be hosted in Sydney by the Real Estate Institute of New South Wales. The REIQ's 2026 nomination book does not mention the Australasian event, so that link is stated here for 2020 only. In New Zealand, REINZ's 2025 competition information sends more people: the winner and runner-up of its Rising Star division, and up to four finalists from its Senior division, progress to represent the country.
Related readWho hires the auctioneer in Queensland, and how the fee is agreed| Contest | Newcomer division | Format points published | Who goes on |
|---|---|---|---|
| REIQ, Queensland (2026) | Rising Star: 25 auctions and 18 months at most | Heats and final on one day; final of four at most | Winner and runner-up, as reported for 2020 |
| REIV, Victoria (2026 senior) | Not covered by the senior kit | 15-minute heats; no time limit in the final | Winner and runner-up |
| REINZ, New Zealand (2025) | Rising Star: 25 public auctions at most, four entries at most | Heats one day, finalist auctions the next | Two rising stars and up to four seniors |
REIQ Awards for Excellence 2026 nomination book and REIQ report of 19 February 2020; REIV 2026 senior auctioneering competition entry kit; REINZ National Auctioneering Championships 2025 competition information.
The numbers at the Australasian event itself are small. An REIA media release of 16 May 2024 said the first round of heats that year was called by 13 auctioneers in one sentence and by fourteen contestants in another, and that five of them went through to a final held at 2pm the same afternoon.
What the organisers publish about scoring
This is the part of the subject where the public record is thinnest, and it is better to say so than to fill the gap. The REIA's championships page publishes no judging criteria and no scoring table. Neither does the REIQ's nomination book. The marking sheets exist, since both organisers speak of points and judges, but they are not in the public documents.
No public score sheet for the Austros or the REIQ contest
Any list of categories and percentages for these two contests that circulates without an organiser's document behind it should be treated as unofficial. The published rules describe the tasks, the time limits and the panel, not the weightings.
The feeder documents do reveal how the scoring is organised, even where they stop short of the full sheet.
The panel. REINZ's 2025 information provides for six judges and a separate Chief Judge, and requires the judges to be unbiased, consistent, fair and transparent in their deliberations. The Chief Judge's decision is final. The REIV's kit likewise describes an independent panel selected by the institute, with a Chief Judge over it.
Explaining the method. REINZ requires that the scoring methodology be explained to all contestants before the heats begin. The method is therefore known to the entrants even though it is not printed for the public.
Ties. If the scores for first place are tied in the New Zealand final, a count back applies.
The clock. In the REIV's 2026 senior heats an entrant needs to finish inside 15 minutes, and penalties apply once the auction runs past 16 minutes. The final has no time limit.
Related readFrom preamble to hammer: how a Queensland auction call is builtThe first bid. The one weighting that the REIV's kit does print is this: 20 points are allocated to obtaining the first bid. Anyone who has stood through the silence at the start of a real auction will understand why an organiser singles that moment out.
Conduct in the room. The kit allows the Chief Judge to apply a penalty, or to award additional points, for matters of audience conduct.
Equipment. The Victorian rules do not permit a penciller, the assistant who records bids, though gavels are allowed. Images of the property are projected on a screen and no other aids may be used. The auctioneer has to carry the figures unaided.
Seller bids. The Victorian script allows vendor bids, and the kit requires them to be disclosed. That is a Victorian competition rule. A Queensland entrant works under Queensland's own rule, which the Office of Fair Trading states on its page for auctioneers: a seller may bid only up to the reserve price, and every such bid must be disclosed.
Results. In Victoria only the winner and the runner-up are identified. The kit says the 2026 award is due to be presented at the REIV's gala dinner on 22 October 2026.
The 2024 review of the Austros
The reason the feeder contests differ from one another is acknowledged by the organisers. On 22 August 2024 the REIA announced, in a media release, that it and REINZ had launched a comprehensive review of the championships as the event marked its 21st cycle.
The release listed three areas of work. The first was unifying the format and structure across the Austros and the events that feed it. The second was evaluating the qualification process, including how places are allocated to each state and territory. The third was event delivery: logistics, financial viability and opportunities for promotion. A joint taskforce of the two institutes was to meet on 26 August 2024, and its findings were to inform the 2025 guidelines for the championships.
The stated aim was consistency across all stages of the competition, while keeping the event as a contest for members of the national bodies. The release also spoke of supporting auctioneering as a transparent and effective method of sale. For a reader comparing the Queensland, Victorian and New Zealand rules above, the review explains why the three documents may converge in later editions. The guidelines that came out of it are not on the REIA's public championships page.
What a competition result does and does not tell a seller
It is fair to ask what a competition title is evidence of. On the organisers' own documents, a title shows that the holder was judged by peers on a scripted sale, against others selling the same property, within a time limit, and under the law of the jurisdiction. In Queensland it also shows that the entrant read out the conditions, went through the contract clauses and dealt with bidders' questions to the panel's satisfaction.
It does not show a record of prices. No rule book read for this guide measures the results an entrant has achieved for real sellers, and a scripted contest cannot. Nor does a title show how the points were distributed, since the weightings are not published. One practitioner made a related point in the REIQ's July 2021 article on the subject: a competition judges an auctioneer on matters that sellers, principals and other agents are not placed to judge.
For readers, the practical value of the rule books lies in the list of tasks. The things a Queensland entrant must do before the first bid are the same things any bidder is entitled to expect at a real auction: the conditions read out, the contract explained, and questions answered before the call begins.
A competition cannot test whether an auctioneer gets a good price. It tests everything a seller cannot see from the footpath.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
