Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

2024 in Australia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Remove ads

The following is a list of events that occurred in the year 2024 in Australia.

Quick Facts Decades:, See also: ...

Quick Facts Monarch, Governor-General ...
Remove ads

Incumbents

Summarize
Perspective
Further information: Table of precedence for the Commonwealth of Australia

Monarch

Governor-General

Prime Minister

Deputy Prime Minister

Opposition Leader

Chief Justice

State and territory leaders

Governors and administrators

Remove ads

Events

January

February

March

April

May

  • 4 May – Queensland's assistant minister for health Brittany Lauga alleges she was drugged and then sexually assaulted on 28 April 2024 during a night out in Yeppoon, with the alleged incident filmed by bystanders who then post the video on Snapchat.[160]
  • 6 May – Queensland premier Steven Miles uses Labour Day to announce that the state's public servants will soon be entitled to ten days paid leave to access reproductive health care at a cost of $80 million each year.[161] A pro-Palestine protestor is later arrested for allegedly throwing eggs at Miles during the annual Labour Day March in Brisbane.[162][163]
  • 7 May – The Reserve Bank of Australia announces it will leave the interest rate steady at 4.35%.[164]
  • 8 May – Cumberland City Council votes to ban books depicting same-sex relationships from their libraries, citing "sexualisation" concerns.[165] The ban receives condemnation from a number of Labor public figures and organisations, such as environment minister Tanya Plibersek, several ministers in the NSW government, the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, independent federal MP Allegra Spender, and Equality Australia.[166]
  • 10 May –
  • 11 May – Federal agricultural minister Murray Watt announces that Western Australia's live sheep export trade will end from 1 May 2028.[170] While the RSPCA welcomes the move, the announcement is condemned by Nationals leader David Littleproud, Western Australian opposition leader Shane Love, National Farmers' Federation CEO Tony Maher and WA Livestock president Geoff Pearson.[170][171] Western Australian premier Roger Cook also criticises the support package announced for farmers to transition away from live exports.[172]
  • 14 May –
  • 15 May –
  • 16 May –
    • The Federal Court of Australia rules that federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek does not need to consider environmental impacts of emissions when she gives approvals for gas or coal projects.[181]
    • Australians are urged to reconsider their need to travel to New Caledonia after violent riots break out in the French territory.[182] Foreign minister Penny Wong later states that Australia is working with authorities to assess options to ensure the safe return of Australians who are stranded in New Caledonia.[183]
    • Snowtown murders accomplice 65-year-old Mark Ray Haydon is released from the Adelaide pre-release centre and back into the general community after spending 25 years in jail for being an accessory to Australia's worst serial killings.[184]
  • 18 May – A Victorian Labor Party conference at Moonee Valley Racecourse attended by Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese is stormed by pro-Palestinian protestors prompting a major security alert.[185]
  • 19 May – Six people are arrested in Melbourne after pro-Palestinian protestors descend on the pro-Israel "Stop the Hate, Mate" rally held on the steps of Parliament House and organised by a Christian group called Never Again is Now.[186]
  • 22 May – Agriculture Victoria confirms the H7N3 strain of avian influenza has been detected at an egg farm in Victoria, forcing hundreds of thousands of chickens to be euthanased.[187] The Victorian Department of Health also confirm there had previously been a human case of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza after a child returning from overseas tested positive in March, but who has since recovered.[188]
  • 24 May – 59-year-old Jennifer Petelczyc and her 18-year-old daughter Gretl are murdered by 63-year-old Mark James Bombara who then shoots himself dead in the Perth suburb of Floreat.[189] Bombara's daughter subsequently accuses WAPOL of repeatedly ignoring her requests for help with her father.[190] Federal social services minister Amanda Rishworth also describes the response from WAPOL prior to the murders as "inadequate."[191]
  • 25 May - Australia’s largest Jewish school in Melbourne is vandalized with graffiti.[192]
  • 30 May – The "Keep the Sheep" campaign is launched by Western Australia's agricultural sector, protesting the Federal Government's decision to end live sheep exports.[193] The campaign's launch is preceded by a large protest rally in Perth the following day in which trucks and farm vehicles were used to bring traffic to a crawl in the Perth CBD.[194]

June

July

  • 1 July –
  • 2 July – Australia issues statements to several social media and search engine websites commanding them to draft and enforce guidelines to prevent minors from seeing inappropriate material by 3 October, or else the companies will face national restrictions.[217]
  • 4 July – Protestors target Parliament House in Canberra, with climate change protestors gluing themselves to bollards in the foyer while pro-Palestinian protestors climb onto the roof to unfurl banners.[218]
  • 7 July – Bill Shorten confirms sex work will no longer be funded through the NDIS under planned reforms.[219]
  • 11 July – Prime Minister Anthony Albanese commences announcing Labor candidates for the 2025 Australian federal election.[220]
  • 12 July – John Setka resigns as secretary of the Victorian branch of the CFMEU, citing pressure from "relentless" media coverage.[221] Setka's resignation came just before Nine newspapers published serious allegations of corruption within the CFMEU.[222] Federal workplace relations minister Tony Burke indicates he sought advice on how to respond to the allegations.[223]
  • 15 July - During his weekly spot on local radio station 4RO, Queensland Labor MP Barry O'Rourke admits he uses the electoral roll to obtain addresses of people who leave negative comments on his Facebook page so he can visit them in person, which prompts accusations of intimidation from federal LNP MP Michelle Landry and One Nation's James Ashby.[224][225] However, premier Steven Miles defends O'Rourke, describing it as "a entirely appropriate use of the electoral roll."[226]
  • 17 July – The allegations of serious misconduct within the CFMEU continues to have repercussions with federal workplace minister Tony Burke asking the Australian Federal Police to investigation the allegations, describing the alleged conduct as "abhorrent" and "intolerable."[227] The ACTU also suspends the construction and general division of the CFMEU as it calls on its members to support the appointment of an independent administrator.[228] New South Wales premier Chris Minns also moves to suspend the union from the NSW Labor Party and seeks to stop the party receiving donations from the union.[229] Anthony Albanese also confirms the Queensland branch will also be affected by the decision to appoint an administrator.[230]
  • 18 July – The Australian Labor Party's national executive cuts ties with the CFMEU's construction division, suspending the affiliation with the New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmanian branches of the ALP.[231]
  • 25 July –
    • A former coal miner becomes the first Australian to win a black lung disease case at trial and is awarded $3.2 million in damages after being diagnosed with pneumoconiosis in 2018, having worked in coal mines in New South Wales and Queensland.[232]
    • The Federal Court of Australia rules that there is insufficient evidence that weedkiller Roundup causes cancer, dismissing a major class action against parent companies Monsanto and Bayer.[233]
  • 28 July – Roughly 40 members of the Victorian chapter of the far-right National Socialist Network hold a flash rally, where they marched from Melbourne's Fed Square to Flinders Street Station, clad in all black and carrying a large "Mass Deportations Now" banner. One person was "arrested at the scene and was interviewed for grossly offensive public conduct," a spokesperson for Victoria Police said.[234][235]
  • 30 July – Victoria's health department confirms 33 people have been diagnosed with Legionnaires' disease within an outbreak affecting the northern and western suburbs of Melbourne.[236]

August

  • 1 August –
    • Foreign minister Penny Wong advises Australians in Lebanon to leave immediately as tensions increase between Israel and Hezbollah following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran.[237]
    • The Queensland Government's ban on new gas exploration throughout the Channel Country comes into effect, stopping any new fracking projects after amendments were made to the Regional Planning Interest Regulation Act 2014.[238]
  • 2 August –One Nation's only state MP in the Queensland parliament Stephen Andrew confirms that he has received a letter from party leader Pauline Hanson advising him that she would not be endorsing him as the candidate for Mirani at the 2024 Queensland state election, prompting Andrew to leave the party.[239]
  • 3 August – Northern Territory police commissioner Michael Murphy uses a speech at the Garma Festival to publicly apologise to "Aboriginal Territorians for the past harms and the injustices caused by members of the Northern Territory police."[240]
  • 5 August – Prime minister Anthony Albanese announces that the government has elevated Australia's terrorism threat from "possible" to "probable" but that it did not mean a terrorist attack was "inevitable."[241]
  • 6 August – Prime minister Anthony Albanese confirms the ambassador of Iran to Australia Ahmad Sadeghi had received a diplomatic rebuke from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for comments he had made on social media where he called for a "wiping out" of Israelis in Palestine and referring to Israelis as a "zionist plague".[242]
  • 7 August – The water temperature around the Great Barrier Reef is reported to have reached a 400-year record high, which is causing more mass bleaching events.[243]
  • 8 August – Queensland health minister Shannon Fentiman announces that the National Mental Health Commission will launch an investigation in the Wolston Park mental health institution which closed in 2001, after decades of allegations relating to sexual abuse, beatings and chemical restraint which allegedly occurred between the 1950s and 1980s.[244]
  • 9 August – With 107 confirmed cases of Legionnaires' disease in Melbourne, Victoria's chief health officer Clare Looker confirms all cases in the outbreak are linked to a cooling tower in the suburb of Laverton North.[245]
  • 15 August –
  • 24 August –
  • 26 August –
  • 27 August – Thousands protest around Australia in support of the CFMEU, after the federal government passed legislation to circumvent a court process by enabling an administrator to be appointed to the union.[252][253][254] Federal Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather is criticised for attending the Brisbane rally where signs were held up depicting Anthony Albanese as Adolf Hitler.[255] Greens leader Adam Bandt defends Chandler-Mather's attendance at the rally describing it as "legitimate" but described the signs and the comparisons as "offensive".[256]
  • 30 August –
    • New South Wales state Liberal MP Rory Amon resigns from the party and parliament after police charge him with five counts of sexual intercourse with a person over 10 and under 14.[257] In a statement, Amon confirms he had been charged with events alleged to have occurred in 2017 but denies all charges and says he will make his case in the courts.[257]
    • Another major traffic accident occurs on Queensland's Bruce Highway between Bundaberg and Gladstone when a truck carrying 42 tonnes of ammonium nitrate and a utility collide, killing the ute driver.[258]
    • Anthony Albanese confirms in a radio interview that there would be a question regarding sexuality and gender identity in the 2026 Australian census despite his government earlier confirming they had dumped their proposal to include such a question.[259]
  • 31 August – Anthony Albanese denies the federal government had changed its policy regarding the inclusion of a question relating to gender identity and sexuality in the 2026 Australian census.[260]

September

October

  • 1 October –
  • 4 October – Federal opposition leader Peter Dutton calls on the expulsion of Iran's ambassador to Australia Ahmad Sadeghi after Sadeghi describes assassinated terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah as an "unparalleled leader" and a "martyr".[278] Prime minister Anthony Albanese also condemns Sadeghi's comments.[278]
  • 5 October – South Australia Police confirm former South Australian opposition leader David Speirs has been charged with two counts of supplying a controlled substance.[279] Spiers says he intends to fight to clear his name and plans to resign from parliament during the next sitting week.[279]
  • 6 October – Thousands of pro-Palestinian protestors rally in capital cities on the eve of the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel.[280] Although there is a heightened police presence, authorities praise the overall behaviour of the demonstrators.[280]
  • 8 October –
    • Jacob Hersant of the National Socialist Network becomes the first Victorian to be found guilty of performing a Nazi salute.[281]
    • Federal opposition leader Peter Dutton accuses prime minister Anthony Albanese of using a motion to mark the first anniversary of the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel for personal political gain, with the Coalition refusing the support the motion as they believe it went beyond paying tribute to the 1,200 lives lost.[282]
  • 9 October – Former Labor senator Fatima Payman launches the Australia's Voice political party.[283] However, concerns are raised about potential confusion with the Indigenous Voice to Parliament and the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum with Tom Calma stating that it should be made clear the new party's purpose is not to represent the Voice to Parliament.[283]
  • 10 October – A sexual abuse survivor who was one of many to be abused by convicted paedophile Darrell Ray[284] at Melbourne's Beaumaris Primary School in the 1960s and 1970s reveals that he has reached a record $8 million settlement with the Victorian Government with the man's lawyer describing it as "the biggest publicly known payment to an abuse survivor in Australia."[285]
  • 12 October – A group of approximately 50 neo-Nazis hold a white supremacist rally in the New South Wales town of Corowa which draws condemnation from community leaders including premier Chris Minns.[286][287]
  • 16 October – The South Australian Legislative Council narrowly votes down 10 to 9, a bill that would ban late-term abortions.[288][289][290][291]
  • 17 October – Legislation introduced by the Country Liberal Party (CLP) Northern Territory Government to lower the age of criminal responsibility back to 10 years of age passed the parliament.[292][293]
  • 18 October – The ACT Labor Party is found to have breached electoral laws for running advertisements that were inaccurate and misleading with the ACT Electoral Commission determining an advertisement targeting shadow health minister Leanne Castley contained "a statement purporting to be a statement of fact that is inaccurate and misleading to a material extent".[294]
  • 21 October – Senator Lidia Thorpe draws widespread condemnation for screaming obscenities at King Charles III and accusing him of genocide during an event at Parliament House in Canberra before she is escorted from the building by security.[295] Criticism of Thorpe comes from all quarters including from prominent Indigenous Australians such academic Marcia Langton, former senator Nova Peris and Ngunnawal elder Aunty Violet Sheridan.[296][297][298] However, Thorpe's conduct is condoned by others including the ACT's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people commissioner Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts.[299]
  • 23 October – A five-year legal case concludes on country, where Parks Australia is found guilty of damaging a sacred site in Kakadu National Park and is ordered to pay at $200,000 fine.[300]
  • 26 October –
  • 30 October –
    • Students record themselves tearing up The Red Zone report into sexual violence at a University of Sydney Students' Representative Council meeting, prompting the university to launch an immediate investigation.[309]
    • NSW Police confirm they have recovered 40,000 limited edition Bluey coins which were allegedly stolen from a Sydney warehouse facility in July 2024.[310] The discovery is made after a third person allegedly involved in the theft, a 27-year-old woman, is arrested and charged with breaking and entering and disposing of stolen property.[310]
  • 31 October – Amid the ongoing free flight upgrade scandal, opposition leader Peter Dutton admits he had requested whether he could use Gina Rinehart's private jet to fly from Rockhampton to Sydney for a Bali bombings memorial service before travelling back up to Mackay.[311] Dutton claims he had asked to use the jet to save taxpayers the $40,000 it would have cost to use an RAAF aircraft.[311]

November

  • 1 November –
  • 6 November –
    • The High Court of Australia strikes down an emergency law requiring migrants with criminal records to wear tracking bracelets and observe a curfew, saying that only judges can impose such punishments.[315]
    • Shadow transport minister Bridget McKenzie apologises after admitting to failing to disclose 16 free flight upgrades between 2015 and 2024.[316]
  • 7 November – Prime Minister Albanese confirms that the federal government will introduce legislation later in the month to ban young people under the age of 16 from using social media.[317]
  • 10 November – Federal health minister Mark Butler announces that under the National Immunisation Program, pregnant women and newborn babies will have access free respiratory syncytial virus vaccines before winter in 2025, with national access to monoclonal antibody for young babies also to become available.[318]
  • 11 November – Remembrance Day services are held throughout the country, and Private Richard Norden is posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his exceptional bravery during the Vietnam War.[319][320]
  • 12 November – 31-year-old Connor Fuller is found guilty in the Newcastle Supreme Court of murdering 61-year-old Mark Tozer in a road rage attack at South West Rocks on the New South Wales Mid North Coast on 28 July 2021.[321]
  • 14 November – Myer announces it has cancelled the traditional unveiling of its Christmas windows in Melbourne's Bourke Street Mall on 17 November to ensure the safety of its customers and employees due to the threat posed by a pro-Palestinian group called Disrupt Wars which had planned to disrupt the event.[322]
  • 16 November – The 2024 Black state by-election is held in South Australia, which was triggered by the resignation of Liberal MP David Speirs who had previously served as the Opposition Leader. The Liberals lose the seat, with their candidate defeated by Labor's Alex Dighton.[323]
  • 17 November – Australian Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind rules that Bunnings had breached the privacy of possibly hundreds of thousands of customers by trialing facial recognition technology in 63 stores between 2018 and 2021, finding the company had collected sensitive information without consent and had failed to take reasonable steps to inform people about the technology.[324] Bunnings responds by releasing CCTV footage of staff members being allegedly threatened and assaulted, with managing director Mike Schneider defending the use of the technology stating that its sole intent was to keep team members and customers safe.[325]
  • 21 November – Multiple incidents of antisemitic vandalism occur in Sydney which police describe as a hate crime, and which Anthony Albanese calls "deeply troubling".[326]
  • 24 November – The government withdraws a bill that would have allowed the Australian Communications and Media Authority to impose a code of conduct or standards for social media companies amid criticism over its effects on free speech.[327]
  • 26 November – 55-year-old former Western Australian state Labor MP Barry Urban is allegedly assaulted by a 25-year-old customer at the Kelmscott tyre business he manages following a verbal altercation.[328] Urban suffers serious head injuries and is taken to Royal Perth Hospital in a critical condition.[328] The 25-year-old man subsequently faces Armadale Magistrates Court on five charges relating to the alleged assault.[328] Urban dies on 15 February 2025 from the injuries he sustained in the alleged assault.[329]
  • 29 November –

December

Remove ads

Arts and entertainment

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Remove ads

Deaths

January

Thumb
Stephen Laybutt

February

Thumb
Lowitja O'Donoghue

March

Thumb
Ian Heads

April

Thumb
Noel Ratcliffe

May

Thumb
Mike Nugent
Thumb
Cam McCarthy

June

Thumb
John Blackman

July

Thumb
Kevan Gosper
Thumb
Robin Warren

August

Thumb
Terry Snow

September

Thumb
Lex Marinos

October

Thumb
George Negus

November

Thumb
Tom Hughes

December

Thumb
Maggie Tabberer
Remove ads

See also

Wikinews has related news:

Country overviews

Remove ads

References

External links

Loading content...
Loading related searches...

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads