July 2005 in Australia and New Zealand

This page deals with current events that take place in or are of interest to Australia, New Zealand, and/or the territories of those countries (such as Norfolk Island and Ross Dependency), and/or current events that involve Australians and/or New Zealanders.

July 31, 2005 (Sunday)

• The New Zealand First party launches its New Zealand general election 2005 campaign with a promise that no pre-election coalition deal will be made. Party leader Winston Peters says the campaign issues are immigration, law and order, senior citizens, trade and Māori affairs. (TVNZ) (NZ Herald)
• The Fiji Government is assuring tourists that the country is safe, after rumours of an imminent coup circulate following the introduction of legislation to pardon those involved in the 2000 coup. (NZ Herald)

July 30, 2005 (Saturday)

• Shelley Mather, the New Zealand woman killed in the 7 July 2005 London bombings, has her funeral at St Matthew-in-the-City in Auckland. Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand, attends. (NZ Herald)

July 27, 2005 (Wednesday)

• Bob Carr, Premier of New South Wales, announces his resignation from office, effective as of August 3, 2005. (News.com.au)

July 26, 2005 (Tuesday)

• July 26: The New Zealand Parliament voted by a substantial margin to ask the New Zealand cricket team to abandon next month's tour of Zimbabwe. (NZ Herald)

July 25, 2005 (Monday)

• The New Zealand general election 2005 is set for Saturday September 17 2005. (NZ Herald)

July 24, 2005 (Sunday)

• Francis Ona, the leader of the former Bougainville Revolutionary Army, has died in village on Bougainville following a short illness. Ona led the bloody 10-year seccessionist war against Papua New Guinea that ended in 1997. (ABC News) (ABC News)

July 23, 2005 (Saturday)

• A team of scientists from Britain and Australia state that they have found high concentrations of arsenic from the hair of King George III of the United Kingdom. Medication containing arsenic could have caused him bouts of madness (Scotsman) (News-medical.net) (Reuters)

July 18, 2005 (Monday)

• Indigenous Australian leaders pay tribute to Sir Ronald Wilson, white Indigenous rights campaigner, who died Friday July 15.(ABC) (The Australian) (SBS)
• Air New Zealand is forced to cancel about 30% of its international flights after flight attendants begin the first of a series of 48-hour strikes. (NZ Herald)

July 17, 2005 (Sunday)

• Heavy rain causes flooding in the Coromandel Peninsula of New Zealand, leaving the holiday town of Pauanui cut off when part of the access road washes away. (NZ Herald)
• Full-time professional poker player Joe Hachem, a former chiropractor from Melbourne, wins the final round of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. He outlasted 5,618 other players to win USD 7.5 million. (NB: The event ended on the morning of July 16 in Las Vegas.) (ABC News/Yahoo!)

July 16, 2005 (Saturday)

• Bishops of the Catholic Church in New Zealand call for the boycott of the CanWest television channels C4TV and TV3 in protest against C4TV's showing of the irreverent cartoon Popetown. (NZ Herald)

July 14, 2005 (Thursday)

• In New Zealand, Graham Capill, former leader of Christian Heritage Party, is sentenced for nine years for sexual abuse of 3 young girls. (TVNZ) (New Zealand Herald)

July 13, 2005 (Wednesday)

• The Australian Government announces it will send back 150 élite Special Air Service troops to Afghanistan, to take part in covert operations and to help thwart a resurgent Taliban. A further 200 troops may also be dispatched to aid reconstruction efforts. (ABC News)

July 7, 2005 (Thursday)

• Prime Minister John Howard, in a live-to-air broadcast, expressed his "horror and disgust" of the London bombings. Recognising an Australian connexion to the British capital, Mr. Howard said "Australians will feel very deeply about this because London is the city, above all others outside our own country, we know and identify with." The Federal Opposition leader, Kim Beazley, said the terrorists were "sub-human filth who must be captured and eliminated." A small contingent of experts from the Australian Federal Police were dispatched to London to assist British authorities (ABC News)
• The High Court of New Zealand rules that the delays in processing Unitec's application to become a university breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights and that the application should have been considered in 2000. (Scoop)

July 2, 2005 (Friday)

• In Australia, the place of the last stand of bushranger Ned Kelly in Glenrowan, Victoria, is made a national heritage site. (ABC) (Australian)

July 1, 2005 (Friday)

• The members of the Australian Senate elected at the election of 2004 take office, granting the government of John Howard control of both Houses of Parliament, the first time a government has had such power since 1981. (ABC News Online)

News collections and sources

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• - This has much of the same material organised in a hierarchical manner to help encourage NPOV in our news reporting.

See also

• 2005 in New Zealand
• 2005 in Australia

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