2000 in Australia

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The following lists events that happened during 2000 in Australia.

← 1999 1998 1997 2000 in Australia → 2001 2002 2003
Decades:	1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s
See also:	Other events of 2000 Timeline of Australian history

Incumbents

• Monarch – Elizabeth II
• Governor-General – Sir William Deane
• Prime Minister – John Howard
  • Deputy Prime Minister – John Anderson
  • Opposition Leader – Kim Beazley
• Chief Justice – Murray Gleeson

State and territory leaders

• Premier of New South Wales – Bob Carr
  • Opposition Leader – Kerry Chikarovski
• Premier of Queensland – Peter Beattie
  • Opposition Leader – Rob Borbidge
• Premier of South Australia – John Olsen
  • Opposition Leader – Mike Rann
• Premier of Tasmania – Jim Bacon
  • Opposition Leader – Sue Napier
• Premier of Victoria – Steve Bracks
  • Opposition Leader – Denis Napthine
• Premier of Western Australia – Richard Court
  • Opposition Leader – Geoff Gallop
• Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory – Kate Carnell (until 18 October), then Gary Humphries
  • Opposition Leader – Jon Stanhope
• Chief Minister of the Northern Territory – Denis Burke
  • Opposition Leader – Clare Martin
• Chief Minister of Norfolk Island – George Smith (until 28 February), then Ronald Nobbs

Governors and administrators

• Governor of New South Wales – Gordon Samuels
• Governor of Queensland – Peter Arnison
• Governor of South Australia – Sir Eric Neal
• Governor of Tasmania – Sir Guy Green
• Governor of Victoria – Sir James Gobbo (until 31 December)
• Michael Jeffery (until 18 August), then John Sanderson
• Administrator of the Australian Indian Ocean Territories – Bill Taylor
• Administrator of Norfolk Island – Tony Messner
• Administrator of the Northern Territory – Neil Conn (until 28 November), then John Anictomatis

2000 is to date the last time in which no Federal, State or Territory elections were held and the first time that no general election was held for any house of Parliament since 1942.^[1]

Events

January

• 1 January
  • Serbian President
    Slobodan Milosevic releases Care Australia worker Branko Jeken from imprisonment in Serbia.^[2]
  • The National Archives releases 1969 Cabinet documents.[3]
  • Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Akhtar returns home to Pakistan after the ICC rules that his bowling action during a recent match was illegal.^[4]
• 2 January – A massive oil spill occurs off the coast of Phillip Island, endangering the region's penguin population.^[5]
• 3 January – When Federal Justice Minister, Senator Amanda Vanstone is asked whether alleged Nazi war criminal Konrad Kalejs would be welcome when he arrived in Australia in the coming days, she replies, "Would you expect a situation where any Australian citizen would not be?", an answer which caused much controversy.^[6][7]
• 7 January – Alleged Nazi war criminal Konrad Kalejs returns to Australia, arriving at Tullamarine Airport, Melbourne, and met by a barrage of protesters.^[8]
• 8 January – Queensland Labor Member for Woodridge, Bill D'Arcy resigns from Queensland Parliament due to the controversy caused by the Net Bet scandal.^[9][10]
• 10 January – CASA issues an Airworthiness Directive which grounds all aircraft after being advised the day before that more contaminants had been found in fuel produced at Mobil's Altona refinery in Melbourne.^[11][12]
• 11 January
  • Australia's biggest ecstasy haul is discovered in Brisbane and seven are arrested.^[13]
  • Another 83 asylum seekers arrive in Darwin.^{[citation needed]}
  • Australian troops return home from East Timor.^[14]
  • A commuter train derails in Hornsby, Sydney.^[15][16]
• 12 January – Leonard Fraser is committed to stand trial over the murder of Rockhampton schoolgirl Keyra Steinhardt.^{[citation needed]}
• 21 January – Former Queensland Labor MP, Bill D'Arcy, is named as the political figure facing child-sex charges. He is committed to the District Court on 49 charges relating to his career as a school teacher.^[17][18]

February

• 5 February
  • The
    Bundamba state by-election are held in Queensland. Labor MP Mike Kaiser wins the seat of Woodridge.^[19]
  • Cyclist Peter Cribb is attacked by a gang of up to ten thugs on the Brisbane Riverside Bikeway and suffers severe brain damage as a result, prompting a widespread ongoing police crackdown on gang violence.[20]
• 9 February – A 15–year–old Aboriginal boy, who was imprisoned for 28 days for stealing stationery, commits suicide in a Northern Territory prison, sparking controversy about the mandatory sentencing laws of the Territory and neighbouring Western Australia.^[21]
• 16 February – 21–year–old Jamie Wurramara, who stole $23 worth of biscuits on Christmas Day 1999, is sentenced to a year in jail under the Northern Territory's mandatory sentencing laws, prompting a wave of protests around the nation.^[22]
• 25 February – The Federal Opposition calls on Aged Care Minister Bronwyn Bishop to resign after revelations she waited four weeks to act on reports that elderly residents of the Riverside Nursing Home were given kerosene baths in an effort to rid them of scabies, a skin rash.^[23]
• 29 February – Katherine Knight murders her partner John Price by stabbing him 37 times in Aberdeen, New South Wales. She proceeded to decapitate, skin and cook the victim in a crime that shocked the country.^[24]

March

• 16 March – A nationwide recall of Herron headache tablets is ordered after a Brisbane doctor and his 18–year–old son are hospitalised with strychnine poisoning.
• 18 March – Herron offers a $250,000 reward to try to find out who tampered with its paracetamol products. A 32–year–old Brisbane man is subsequently arrested.
• 20 March – Queensland Premier Peter Beattie announces that State Cabinet has approved a $30 million deal to exclude trawling from 35 percent of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and reduce the fish catch from the reef by 15 percent.^[25]
• 25 March – Brisbane City Council election - Jim Soorley is elected for a fourth term as Lord Mayor of Brisbane, defeating Liberal candidate Gail Austen.^[26]

April

• 6 April – Train carriages derail at Redfern, Sydney. No passengers are involved.
• 10 April – Prime Minister John Howard reaches agreement with the Northern Territory Chief Minister Denis Burke on mandatory sentencing. In exchange for Commonwealth funding, the Territory's laws will be changed to give diversionary programmes as a substitute for jail time to children accused of minor crimes. Police will have discretion to give children who've committed more serious crimes access to these programmes.^[27]
• 27 April – Four elderly people, between the ages of 65 to 88, are hospitalised after catching the potentially fatal
  Melbourne Aquarium in what became Victoria's worst outbreak of the disease with possible exposure to up to 10,000 people.^[28]

• 21 May – The
  Airport Rail Link opens in Sydney
  .
• 28 May – 250,000 people walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in support of reconciliation with Australia's Aboriginal people.^[29]

June

• 23 June – The Childers backpacker hostel fire kills 15 people.

July

• 1 July –
  Goods and Services Tax introduced.^[30]
• 24 July – Five people are killed in the 2000 Marlborough helicopter crash when a rescue helicopter crashes while attempting to land in thick fog at Marlborough, Queensland.^[31]

August

• 10 August – Beginning of the Sydney gang rapes by a group from up to fourteen men.
• 15 August – Queensland Attorney–General
  Matt Foley announces that the Government has ordered an independent investigation into allegations of widespread electoral rorting within the Queensland Labor Party.^[32]
• 17 August – It is announced that the current Queensland Assistant Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson will replace Jim O'Sullivan as Police Commissioner when he retires on 31 October.[33]

September

• 11–13 September – The World Economic Forum is held in Melbourne. The S11 movement organises protests that overshadow the meeting.
• 15 September – 1 October – Sydney Olympics held & are a massive success. Outgoing International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch regards them as the 'best Olympic Games ever'. The Olympic Games are handed back to their birthplace Athens, Greece from Sydney, Australia. They'll are welcome back home, soon in the next 4 years to host 2004 Summer Olympics

October

• 10 October – It is revealed that Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith has incurred almost $50,000 on a taxpayer-funded Telecard for a service he says he hasn't used for years, but which he admits he gave to his son.^[34]

November

• 1 November – Former Queensland Labor MP Bill D'Arcy is found guilty of 18 child sex charges committed while he was a school teacher.^[35]
• November – New South Wales suffers its worst floods in 40 years, with 240 cm of rain falling in one week.
• 22 November – Jim Elder resigns as Queensland Deputy Premier, citing allegations of electoral rorting within the Labor Party currently under investigation by the Shepherdson Inquiry.^[36]

Arts and literature

• ARIA Music Awards of 2000
• Benang are co-winners of the Miles Franklin Award

• 27 June –
  Fox Studios Australia
  in Sydney.
• 2 October –
  Melbourne
  .
• The Dish
• Looking for Alibrandi
• The Wog Boy