Australia is a seismically active continent with an intraplate compressive stress field primarily driven by far-field plate boundary interactions. Major (magnitude ≥ 5) surface-rupturing earthquakes are primarily sourced from reverse faults. Major earthquakes perturb local-to-regional stress fields and influence the spatiotemporal properties of subsequent earthquakes. This thesis first contextualizes Australian earthquakes against global comparatives by investigating 260 finite-fault rupture models for 137 moment magnitude (Mw) 4.1 to 8.1 continental earthquakes worldwide. I find that: (i) Australian earthquakes are amongst the most kinematically and geometrically complex for their Mw (ii) upper-bounds and variance of the number of faults that rupture co-seismically increase with increasing Mw, and (iii) multi-fault rupture populations show no dependency on strain rate or proximity to plate boundaries. The thesis then presents a suite of studies that model static and viscoelastic coulomb stress changes (ΔCFS) imparted by major Australian earthquakes on to receiver faults and in the surrounding crust. I find that static ΔCFS models provide an informative physical-statistical basis for characterising many seismic sequences in Australia, with some exceptions. Aftershocks occur predominantly within positive static stress lobes and close to the advancing viscoelastic positive stress lobes, especially over the first few decades after major earthquakes in these regions. Earthquake triggering appears to occur under stress perturbations as small as ~ 0.001 to 0.01 bar, suggesting cratons contain regions of critically stressed lithosphere. The effects of varying source fault geometries and kinematics on ΔCFS fields and subsequent seismicity are used to show how progressive refinement of source fault models using emergent data can reduce epistemic uncertainties in the role of ΔCFS in earthquake triggering. In some instances, increased source model complexity does not significantly impact on ΔCFS results and possible relationships to aftershocks relative to simple source models. The thesis finally investigates the role of lithospheric-scale flexural bending due to eustatic sea level changes, and whether these impart ΔCFS perturbations on finite faults and in regions similarly to stresses imparted by preceding earthquakes. Preliminary age distributions of large paleo-earthquakes on these reverse faults are concurrent with ΔCFS peaks imparted by eustatic sea-level changes. ΔCFS of > 0.1 to > 1 bar on faults during the low-stand Marine Isotope (MIS) Stage 2 to Stage 4 interval (ca. ~30 to ~70 ka) provides tentative evidence that earthquake clusters could be stimulated by sea-level lowstands. This thesis demonstrates the power and utility of ΔCFS modelling to improve understanding of intraplate earthquakes.