2003 in Australia

The following lists events that happened during 2003 in Australia.

2003 in Australia
MonarchElizabeth II
Governor-GeneralPeter Hollingworth, then Sir Guy Green, then Michael Jeffery
Prime ministerJohn Howard
Population19,872,646
ElectionsNSW

←

 2003
in
Australia

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Decades:
  • 1980s
  • 1990s
  • 2000s
  • 2010s
  • 2020s
See also:

Incumbents
Peter Hollingworth
Michael Jeffery
John Howard

State and territory leaders

Governors and administrators

Events

January
  • 9 January - Convicted child sex offender Dennis Ferguson is released from jail amid public outcry in Queensland after serving a 14-year sentence.[1]
  • 17 January - Batsman Darren Lehmann made a racist outburst during Australia's four-wicket victory at the Gabba.[2] Lehmann shouted "black c-" while entering the dressing room after being run out.
  • 18 January – Four people die in the Canberra bushfires of 2003.[3]
  • 31 January – Seven people die in the Waterfall train disaster, which happened due to the driver having a heart attack at the controls of the train & losing control of the train.[4]

February
  • 2–6 February - Cyclone Beni causes widespread flooding and damage in south-east Queensland, but also easing the drought in rural areas.[5] Floodwaters claimed the life of a 67-year-old man on 5 February as he attempted to rescue a horse trapped in floodwaters near Rockhampton.[5]
  • 4 February - Mike Horan is voted out by the National Party as Leader of the Opposition in Queensland and is replaced by Lawrence Springborg.[6]
  • 11 February - Justice John Dyson Heydon is sworn in as judge of the High Court of Australia, replacing Justice Mary Gaudron.[7]
  • 16 February – Tens of thousands of Australian protestors join millions more in other cities around the world in the 2003 anti-war protests demonstrating against the Iraq War.[8][9] These are the biggest street protests seen since the Vietnam War.[9]
  • 22 February - Cricketer Shane Warne is suspended from cricket for one year from 10 February 2003.[10]
  • 26 February - Victorian MP and former Olympic skier, Kirstie Marshall, is ejected from her first question time when she breastfed her newborn baby in Victoria's Parliament, the first woman to do so.[11]

March
  • 10 March - Quentin Bryce is announced as the next Governor of Queensland.
  • 20 March – The Iraq war begins. Australia sends 2000 military personnel to the conflict.
  • 22 March – Bob Carr's ALP government is re-elected for a third term in New South Wales

April
  • April – The North Korean freighter Pong Su is stormed by Special Operations Command troops carrying almost 125 kg (300 lb) of heroin.
  • 11 April - Natasha Ryan is found hiding in a wardrobe at her 26-year-old boyfriend's home near Rockhampton. Leonard John Fraser was acquitted of her murder.
  • 22 April - Max Sica reports finding the bodies of the three Singh children in the spa of their family home at Bridgeman Downs. He was later convicted of their murders on 3 July 2012.
  • 28 April – All Pan Pharmaceuticals products are recalled by the Therapeutic Goods Administration after a number of safety problems were found at its manufacturing plant, in what was one of Australia's biggest ever recalls.

May
  • 14 May - Shirley and Vijay Singh ask police to remove Max Sica from their children's funeral service.
  • 25 May - Peter Hollingworth bows to pressure and quits as Governor-General following Anglican church child sex scandal.
  • 29 May – An attempted hijacking of Qantas Flight 1737 between Melbourne and Launceston is thwarted when a flight attendant and passengers subdue and disarm the culprit.
  • 30 May - Finding Nemo was released and it takes place in Great Barrier Reef and Sydney Australia
    • Stockbroker Rene Rivkin is fined $30,000 and sentenced to nine months of periodic detention for insider trading. A jury found that he had acted improperly in buying 50,000 Qantas shares in April 2001 just hours after hearing of a potential merger between the company and the struggling Impulse Airlines.

June
  • 4 June - Queensland Chief Magistrate Di Fingleton is sent to jail for six months after a Supreme Court jury found that she has unlawfully retaliated against a witness.
  • 5 June - The Federal Court rules in Commissioner of Taxation v La Rosa that a convicted heroin dealer is entitled to a tax deduction of $220,000 for money stolen from him during a drug deal.[12]
  • 22 June – Major-General Michael Jeffrey becomes Australia's Governor-General after the resignation of Dr Peter Hollingworth due to his handling of a child sex case while he was Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane.

July
  • 3 July - Australian film critic, Margaret Pomeranz, attempted in Sydney to screen the controversial movie Ken Park, which had been refused classification and banned by the Classification Review Board on the grounds that the film depicted actual child sex abuse.
  • 10 July - News South Wales' Independent Commission Against Corruption issued findings against a member of the Legislative Council, Malcolm Jones, of the Outdoor Recreation Party. The ICAC found Mr Jones had misused taxpayer dollars, by falsely claiming an allowance for living in the country, as well as using entitlements to prop up other political parties.
  • 11 July - Pop singer Delta Goodrem announces that she has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, a rare form of cancer.
  • 19 July - The Australian Government committed 2,500 troops to the Solomon Islands for a Regional Assistance Mission in an effort to help the government re-establish law and order. The troops arrived on 24 July.

August
  • 10 August - Brisbane's Festival Hall closes its doors for the last time.
  • 11 August - Major-General Michael Jeffrey is sworn in as Australia's Governor-General.
  • 20 August -
    • Former One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, and David Ettridge are sentenced to three years jail for electoral fraud.
    • Saudi Arabia rejects a shipment of 58,000 sheep from the MV Cormo Express on alleged disease grounds and refuses to unload them. The live trade to Saudi Arabia is suspended in light of the rejection.
  • 23 August - Prime Minister, John Howard, commits an extra $125 million to help save the Murray Darling River System.
  • 25 August - Prime Minister, John Howard, receives a hero's welcome from Solomon Islanders when he visits Honiara.
  • 29 August - Ali Abdulrazak was shot 10 times after prayers at the Lakemba Mosque in Sydney, New South Wales.

September
  • 1 September - Former One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, and David Ettridge are refused bail.
  • 3 September - Radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir sentenced to four years jail after being found guilty of participating in a campaign of treason against Indonesia. He was also convicted for his involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings.
  • 10 September - Imam Samudra is found guilty for his involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings.
  • 25 September - Gina Rinehart, daughter of mining magnate Lang Hancock, and Rose Porteous, his widow, decide to end their long-running legal battle.
  • 29 September - Prime Minister John Howard announces a major ministerial reshuffle. Philip Ruddock becomes Attorney-General, Amanda Vanstone became Immigration Minister and Tony Abbott became Health Minister.
  • 30 September - The body of 69-year-old former charity shop worker Marea Yann is discovered at her home in Healesville, Victoria.[13] An extensive murder investigation ensues but the case remains unsolved.[14]

October
  • 3 October - Pop starlet and Neighbours actress Holly Valance loses a NSW Supreme Court legal battle with her former manager, Scott Michaelson, who had sued Valance for dumping him as manager last year. Mr. Justice Clifford Einstein awards more than $330,000 plus legal costs to Michaelson on 6 October.
  • 12 October - Australia commemorates the first anniversary of the 2002 Bali bombings.
  • 14 October - Three gunmen, one using an automatic weapon, fired indiscriminately into 5 Lawford Street, Greenacre, Sydney, killing 22-year-old Mervat Hanka, asleep in her bed, and 24-year-old Ziad Abdulrazak, who'd been to jail for drug offences.
  • 22 October – U.S. President George W. Bush & Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Australia simultaneously. U.S. President Bush gives his address to Australian Parliament on 22 October, while the PRC leader gives his address on 23 October.
  • 24 October - Agriculture Minister, Warren Truss, announced that the 50,000 sheep from the Cormo Express, stranded in the Persian Gulf 79 days after leaving Australia, have been accepted by the Government of Eritrea.
  • 26 October - ASIO raids the Sydney homes of six suspected terror suspects, including that of 35-year-old Frenchman Willie Brigitte.
  • 30 October -
    • Ahmad Fahda, 25, was executed in a hail of gunfire in front of horrified onlookers at the service station on the corner of Punchbowl Road and Dudley Street, Punchbowl, Sydney, New South Wales.
    • The Federal Government's Telstra privatisation bill fails to pass the Senate.

November
  • 6 November - The Queensland Court of Appeal sets aside the convictions of Pauline Hanson and David Ettridge.
  • 11 November - Turkish Kurd asylum seekers who landed on Melville Island last week are sent to Indonesia amid a cloud of political controversy.
  • 14 November - The Queensland Crime and Misconduct Committee resolved that it would investigate the imprisonment of Pauline Hanson and David Ettridge.
  • 20 November - A shipment of 70,000 sheep bound for the Middle East was delayed when Victorian authorities found shredded ham placed into the sheep's feed. Activists declared they'd put pig meat into the feed in an attempt to stop the live sheep from meeting the criteria for Muslim markets.
  • 28 November – Simon Crean resigns as Opposition Leader. Mark Latham defeats Kim Beazley by two votes in a party room ballot on 2 December.

December
  • 3 December - Former Queensland Chief Magistrate Di Fingleton walks free from jail after six months.
  • 8 December - The Federal Government announces a budget surplus.
  • 16 December - The Federal Government made its long-awaited announcement on the excise rate for fuel alternatives after their final Cabinet meeting for the year. LPG for cars, previously free of excise, will be taxed by 2.5 cents per litre from mid-2008.
  • 17 December - Health Minister, Tony Abbott, unveils the Government's medical indemnity insurance package.
  • 18 December - The Productivity Commission's draft report on housing affordability for first homebuyers is released and puts forward measures including the scrapping of stamp duties, as well as the means testing of the $7,000 First Home Owners Grant. The Productivity Commission concedes there's no quick fix for the big jump in house prices over the last few years.

Arts and literature
Main article: 2003 in Australian literature

Film

Television

Sport

Births

Deaths

See also

References
  1. "Ferguson released from jail". The Sydney Morning Herald. 10 January 2003. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  2. Hoult, Nick (17 January 2003). "Lehmann faces long suspension for abuse". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  3. Burnside, Nick; Allen, Craig; Larkins, Natalie (18 January 2023). "The bushfire that changed Canberra forever". ABC News. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  4. O'Sullivan, Matt (31 January 2023). "Two decades after Waterfall crash, train safety system yet to be completed". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  5. "Qld flood damage revealed". The Sydney Morning Herald. 8 February 2003. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  6. "Springborg wins Qld Nats vote". The Sydney Morning Herald. 5 February 2003. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  7. "Justice Heydon inducted". The Sydney Morning Herald. 12 February 2003. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  8. "With one voice, the world says no". The Age. 17 February 2003. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  9. "Australia launches anti-war protests". BBC News. 14 February 2003. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  10. "On this day in 2003: Shane Warne handed 12-month ban after taking diuretic". Independent. 22 February 2022. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  11. "Breastfeeding MP causes stir". The Age. 26 February 2003. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  12. Lund, Siska (2003). "Deductions arising from illegal activities" (PDF). Revenue Law Journal. 13: 115–127. doi:10.53300/001c.6667.
  13. "Good Samaritan's trust ends in death". The Age. 2 October 2003. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  14. Kaila, Jon (15 May 2023). "Victoria Police hope $1m reward could be the tipping point in helping solve the Marea Yann case". Herald Sun. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  15. See AFL: Round 19, 2003 Archived 19 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine
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