1990 in Australia


The following lists events that happened during 1990 in Australia.

Incumbents

January

  • 2 January – A battle by the major creditors to the Bond Group of companies to gain control of the best assets begins in the Supreme Court of Victoria.
  • 3 January – Prime Minister Bob Hawke and New South Wales Premier Nick Greiner meet to discuss the reconstruction of Newcastle.
  • 16 January – Andrew Peacock launches the Federal Opposition's Family Action Plan.
  • 17 January –
  • *Prime Minister Bob Hawke is heckled by pilots while on the campaign trail.
  • *The National Australia Bank buys out Britain's Yorkshire Bank.
  • 18 January –
  • *Supreme Court of Victoria grants Alan Bond permission to sell an oilfield to raise cash.
  • *A fateful outback trip in scorching conditions claims the lives of seven Aboriginal people from the Punmu community in the Great Sandy Desert.
  • 19 January – A fire breaks out in the historic Wool Store building in Brisbane.
  • *A man is charged over an alleged plan to fire-bomb Parliament in Canberra.
  • *Queensland Premier Wayne Goss announces an independent inquiry into the logging industry on Fraser Island.
  • 22 January –
  • *Tram dispute talks break down in Melbourne.
  • *A gas leak causes the evacuation of a Melbourne building.
  • 23 January – The industrial tram dispute continues as 250 trams blockade the city of Melbourne.
  • 24 January –
  • *An Australian is shot dead in Bougainville.
  • *A fireworks explosion occurs at an amusement park on the New South Wales Central Coast.
  • 25 January –
  • *Opposition health spokesman Peter Shack embarrassingly fails to produce the Coalition's long-promised health insurance policy. The Federal Opposition abandons its Medicare policy in what critics regarded as an embarrassing turnaround.
  • *The International Olympic Committee President arrives in Melbourne, giving a massive boost to Melbourne's Olympic Games bid.
  • 26 January – Allan Border is honoured in the Australia Day Honours.
  • 27 January – A riot breaks out at a Brisbane jail.
  • 28 January –
  • *Prime Minister Bob Hawke pledges millions for a new Melbourne sports stadium.
  • *Police arrest a man in Melbourne alleged to be the infamous loaded note bandit.
  • 30 January – An inquiry into the Grafton bus crash begins.
  • 31 January – A freak storm tears a path of destruction across Mount Isa, Queensland.

    February

  • 2 February – Cyclone Nancy hits the town of Maryborough in Queensland.
  • 7 February – Commonwealth Games athletes are welcomed home with a parade through the city streets of Melbourne.
  • 8 February – An oil slick pollutes Victoria's Ninety Mile Beach.
  • 12 February – Carmen Lawrence becomes the premier of Western Australia, and Australia's first female premier, after the resignation of Peter Dowding.
  • 14 February –
  • *A report is released which condemns the police rescue effort during the Newcastle earthquake.
  • *Austin Lewis is removed from the shadow frontbench for declaring that Andrew Peacock was "gone" if they lost the next election.
  • 15 February – The Reserve Bank of Australia cuts official interest rates by half a percent – a move which Federal Opposition MP John Hewson described as "blatantly playing politics".
  • 16 February – Prime Minister Bob Hawke announces a 24 March election date.
  • 25 February – A televised debate between Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Opposition Leader Andrew Peacock reinforces Bob Hawke's position.
  • 28 February – Bob Carr moves to suspend Standing Orders in New South Wales Legislative Assembly to move a motion to condemn National Party Leader and Deputy Premier Wal Murray for allegedly interfering with proper tendering procedures in respect of the Walsh Bay redevelopment.

    March

  • 5 March –
  • *Queensland State Cabinet gives Commission of Inquiry status to the investigation which Mr Tony Fitzgerald, QC, will conduct into the future management and conservation of Fraser Island.
  • *Federal Opposition Leader, Andrew Peacock, launches the Liberal Party's policy for the upcoming Federal Election.
  • 6 March – The New South Wales Auditor-General clears the New South Wales Rail Chief, Sayers, of any wrongdoing.
  • 7 March – The New South Wales Government launches its "Statecare" environmental policies on the same day that an oil slick is washed up on three Sydney beaches.
  • 9 March –
  • *A "sombre, serious and responsible" Labor campaign is launched in Brisbane, 4 days after the Liberal Party's glitzy launch.
  • *Bushfires burn in the Adelaide Hills.
  • 11 March –
  • *The Queensland Government introduces new heritage laws to protect heritage buildings from demolition by developers.
  • *Criminal Abe Saffron is released from prison.
  • 18 March – Andrew Peacock is interviewed by Laurie Oakes on the television program Sunday, regarding his stance on the Multifunction Polis, a proposal to build a Japanese funded technology city in Australia. Peacock attacks the MFP concept, saying it would become an Asian "enclave".
  • 19 March –
  • *The Australian newspaper runs a headline titled Peacock a 'danger in the Lodge'.' for Andrew Peacock] opposition to the Multifunction Polis.
  • *Cyclone Ivor batters the Queensland coast.
  • *Wild storms hit Sydney.
  • *The Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody is to focus on police in a new inquiry.
  • 20 March –
  • *Serial killer John Wayne Glover is arrested for a series of "Granny Murders" on Sydney's North Shore.
  • 21 March –
  • *Allegations are revealed that a Minister misled New South Wales Parliament over North Coast land deals.
  • *Alan Bond sells off his brewing interests and Bond Media to Bell Resources.
  • 22 March – Prime Minister Bob Hawke admits that Australia is in the first stages of recession.
  • 23 March-
  • *A bushfire sweeps through the Adelaide Hills.
  • *Police conduct a drug raid on the Heidelberg Hotel, angering civil libertarian groups.
  • *Aboriginal groups accuse Charles Perkins of joining in an attack on land rights by the New South Wales Government.
  • *The Law Reform Act 1989, decriminalising private sexual acts between two people of the same sex in Western Australia, goes into effect.
  • 24 March – A federal election is held. The government of Prime Minister Bob Hawke is re-elected for a fourth term with its lowest primary vote ever – 39.4% and the loss of 8 seats. Australian Democrats Leader Janine Haines fails in her bid for the South Australian Lower House seat of Kingston, and National leader Charles Blunt loses his northern New South Wales seat of Richmond, largely on anti-nuclear Helen Caldicott's preferences. In North Sydney, popular ex-mayor Ted Mack becomes the first genuine Independent to win a House seat since World War II. The number of Australian Democrats Senators increases to 8.
  • 25 March – A bomb and poison attack is instigated against an Adelaide poultry processing plant.
  • 26 March – Finance Minister Senator Peter Walsh makes unflattering remarks about poll-driven policies having undermined the careful work of Cabinet's Economic Review Committee and declines to stay in the Ministry.

    April

  • 3 April –
  • *The Liberal Party of Australia leadership spill, 1990 takes place, with Dr. John Hewson being elected as Leader, and Peter Reith as Deputy Leader of the Federal Liberal Party.
  • *The fourth Hawke ministry is announced – Treasurer Paul Keating replaces the retired Lionel Bowen as deputy prime minister, Senator Graham Richardson transfers from the Environment portfolio to Social Security and the centre left faction loses out in the extensive reshuffle.
  • *The South Australian Government releases its final report on the murder of George Duncan finding that there was insufficient evidence to charge any person with the murder which took place on 10 May 1972.
  • 11 April – Tim Fischer unexpectedly beats John Sharp for the leadership of the National Party of Australia. He pledges to restore his party's traditional base in rural and provincial Australia.

    May

  • The 80 Series Toyota Land Cruiser goes on sale in Australia for the first time. It is considered to be the greatest 4WD ever built.
  • 6 May – Six people die in the Cowan rail accident, when a CityRail Interurban train collides with a 3801 Limited steam locomotive on the banks of the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales.
  • 14 May – A bitter public row between Paul Keating and John Button over tariff policy leads critics to cast further doubt on Prime Minister Bob Hawke's ability to discipline his ministers.
  • 21 May – The Federal Government rejects calls from the New South Wales Government for a Royal Commission into the Mafia and its alleged links to the assassination of Police Chief Colin Winchester.
  • 27 May – Mistaking them for two off duty British soldiers, the Provisional Irish Republican Army kill Australian tourists Nick Spanos and Stephen Melrose in the southern Dutch town of Roermond.