Logies 2026: Sam Pang wins Gold, Sam Neill posthumously awarded, Magda Szubanski returns

Former Logies host Sam Pang has returned to the stage but in a vastly different capacity, as the winner of the night’s highest honour, the Gold Logie.

Pang, a presenter on Have You Been Paying Attention and The Front Bar, is officially Australia’s most popular TV personality.

Pang’s speech was a mix of lighthearted jokes as well as earnest gratitude as he namechecked many of his collaborators over the years as well as his family. He said, “I grew up watching television at the feet of my parents – they wouldn’t let me on the couch.

“You just never think you’re going to be on it. It’s a wonderful industry, it’s a wonderful world full of talented people and amazing programs. I’m very, very lucky and very, very lucky to be part of it.”

Other Gold Logie finalists included Ally Langdon, Julia Morris, Lisa Millar, Poh Ling Yeow, Todd Woodbridge and host Robert Irwin. Irwin earlier won the Logie for most popular presenter.

The Gold Logie was presented by Magda Szubanski in character as Sharon Strzelecki, who only a month ago revealed she was ready to return to public life after battling cancer for years. She walked out onto the stage to a standing ovation.

As host, Irwin sashayed onto the stage in a glittering ensemble, using the moves he picked up on the US version of Dancing with the Stars, which last year catapulted him into a new fame tier of global superstar.

He referenced his reputation as a nice guy and questioned whether he was provocative enough to host an awards ceremony, before he threw a few relatively polite jabs.

He suggested there were parallels between the environment of apex predators and venomous snakes and the TV industry, and made fun of both the perennially whinging David Hughes and an absent Karl Stefanovic (“we’ve saved him a seat, to the right, to the far right”).

Irwin brought some of those literal snakes to the Logies with a live reptile show-and-tell, bringing out a blue-tongued lizard and two snakes as he moved through the crowd, placing a fully grown olive python around actor Luke McGregor who couldn’t have squirmed more than he did.

Irwin’s monologue was mostly softballs but comedian Urzila Carlson and presenter Guy Montgomery came to play, and set up a night with more than a few political punches.

The pair were a withering presence on stage as they fully embraced their roles as roasters-in-chief and threw more barbs in Stefanovic’s direction.

Carlson quipped, “Is it just me or do you think Karl Stefanovic has not been the same since he got the Covid vaccine?”.

But a confused Charlie Pickering could be seen on camera reacting with the words “What did I do?!” when he was lumped in with Stefanovic and the also absent Kyle Sandilands after it was suggested on stage that he change the spelling of his first name with a K so he could “round out the KKK of true blue Aussie blokes, good on you, we love you, Aussie blokes”.

Shane Jacobson later improvised while he was struggling to open an envelope, “God, if Pauline Hanson’s mouth was this hard to open, wouldn’t the world be a good place”, and Andrew Denton also got a shot in at Donald Trump, describing him as a “grifting, lying, sociopathic a—ehole”.

The late Sam Neill won a posthumous award in the lead actor category for one of his final roles, in the drama The Twelve, which friend Heather Mitchell accepted on his behalf. Mitchell said, “I’m so sorry I’m not Sam, I know how much this would mean to him”.

The Channel Seven news network, comprising 7News and Sunrise picked up the Logie in the news coverage and public affairs report category for its coverage of the Bondi terror attack.

A potentially very awkward moment was narrowly avoided when the inaugural Bruce McAvaney Award for Most Popular Sports Presenter, for which McAvaney was a nominee, went to not McAvaney but neither he nor actual winner Jelena Dokic were in the room.

TV veteran Steve Bisley won his first ever Logie in the comedy actor category for his role on Deadloch – which, ironically, made him the only win for a show driven by and about women.

There was a crowd-pleasing reunion from two 1990s TV legends, Stacy “Ranger Stacy” Thompson and Ann-Marie Biggar, who came out to pay tribute to the late Jamie Dunn, the puppeteer behind Agro, who died in March, and then stayed to present the children’s programming Logie to Play School.

Other winners during the long ceremony were Ally Langdon (news or public affairs presenter), RFDS (drama program), Goolagong (miniseries), Lila Maguire (new talent), Brooke Satchwell (lead actress), Simon Baker (supporting actor), Claudia Karvan (Homebodies), MasterChef (competition reality), The Assembly (factual or documentary), Dog Park (scripted comedy), Celia Pacquola (comedy actress), Tipping Point (entertainment), Have You Been Paying Attention? (comedy entertainment), Australian Open coverage (sports), Travel Guides (lifestyle), Muster Dogs (structured reality), Australian Story (current affairs).

Deborah Mailman became the first Indigenous person to be inducted into the Logies Hall of Fame and received tributes from the likes of Cate Blanchett, Miranda Tapsell, Rachel Griffiths, Claudia Karvan and even her high school drama teacher Miss Murphy.

Mailman met the moment with an emotional and graceful speech in which she acknowledged her parents’ support.

She added, “I’m overwhelmed with pride to be the first Aboriginal person to receive this honour. As I look around the room, I’m so thrilled to see so many of our mob being celebrated tonight.

“To everyone watching at home and who have all been with me, sharing these stories that I’ve been a part of for over 30 years, thank you for watching.”

Andrew Denton was another Hall of Fame inductee. A once-prolific presence on Australian TV, and despite hosting two Logie ceremonies, a statue has remained elusive until now.

In a characteristically self-deprecating speech, Denton explained that he was now in stage five of the five celebrity stages – “Who’s Andrew Denton, get me Andrew Denton, get me someone like Andrew Denton, get me a young Andrew Denton, and who’s Andrew Denton?”.

On a more serious note, he added, “I’ve had a lot of interesting moments in my career, some exhilarating, some excruciating, but they all tend to fade. What doesn’t fade are the friendships, and I’m deeply grateful for the friendships that I’ve had and kept all these years.”

He saved his most loving words for long-time wife Jennifer Byrne, but still got a joke in – “This is a better Logie than yours”.

The series A Country Practice was the third inductee, which was also voted the third most popular Australian series in a public poll to mark 70 years of local TV. Home and Away was number two and the winner was Kath & Kim.