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The study compared cardiovascular risks factors, morbidity and in-hospital mortality following coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery in Australian patients of different ethnic backgrounds including Aboriginal (AB), Italian (IT), Indian (IA), British Caucasians (BC), and Chinese (CH). These groups AB (n = 20), CH (n = 12), IT (n = 104), BC (n = 493), and IA (n = 16) all had first-time isolated CABG surgery at St. Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne from March 2001 to March 2007. AB patients were current or past smokers with the highest prevalence of preoperative diabetes (P = 0.001) and mostly had nonelective CABG surgery (P = 0.018). AB patients had higher incidences of postoperative respiratory failure (P = 0.001) compared with the other groups. In contrast, past history of MI (P = 0.012) was associated with IA patients. Both IA and AB groups had significantly higher acute renal failure rates requiring temporary dialysis (P = 0.025), longer ICU (P = 0.003) and hospital stays (P = 0.03) compared to BC, IT and CH groups. All groups had similar 30-day (P = 0.59) in-hospital mortality. The higher incidences of in-hospital morbidity observed in IA and AB compared to BC, IT, and CH groups suggests that ethnic lifestyle may be a strong risk factor. Larger confirmatory studies are required to verify incidents and elucidate reasons why ethnic-associated perioperative complications exist.