2000
Vivienne Cleven wins the David Unaipon Award for Bitin' Back.
Corroboree 2000 and the Walk for Reconciliation.
Cathy Freeman wins gold at the Sydney Olympics.
Kim Scott wins Miles Franklin Literary Award (shared with Thea Astley) for his novel Benang: From the Heart.
John Muk Muk Burke wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for his poetry collection Night Song and Other Poems.
Footballer, boxer, and children's author Anthony Mundine is awarded National NAIDOC Person of the Year.
Yvonne Augius is awarded National NAIDOC Elder of the Year (Female).
Search for recipients of National NAIDOC Awards.
2001
Robert Lowe wins the David Unaipon Award for The Mish.
Kim Scott wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for Creative Prose for his novel Benang: From the Heart.
Musician Kutcha Edwards is awarded National NAIDOC Person of the Year. Poet Cec Fisher is awarded National NAIDOC Elder of the Year (Male).
2002
Larissa Behrendt wins the David Unaipon Award for Home.
Jane Harrison and Dallas Winmar are joint winners of the Kate Challis RAKA Award: Jane Harrison for her play Stolen, and Dallas Winmar for her play Aliwa!.
Playwright Peter Coppin is awarded National NAIDOC Elder of the Year (Male). Ida West is awarded National NAIDOC Elder of the Year (Female).
2003
Fiona Doyle wins the David Unaipon Award for Whispers of This Wik Woman.
Actor and playwright Deborah Mailman is awarded National NAIDOC Person of the Year.
Fred Penny is awarded National NAIDOC Scholar of the Year.
Stacey Kelly-Greenup is awarded National NAIDOC Youth of the Year.
2004
19 November: In Queensland, Mulrunji, an Indigenous Palm Island resident, died of injuries in a police cell after being arrested for allegedly causing a public nuisance. His death led to civic disturbances on the island and a legal, political and media sensation that continued for three years, culminating in the first trial of an Australian police officer for a death in custody. The officer was finally acquitted by a jury in June 2007.
Tara June Winch wins the David Unaipon Award for Swallow the Air.
Aden Ridgeway is awarded National NAIDOC Person of the Year.
Columnist Jirra Lulla Harvey is awarded National NAIDOC Artist of the Year.
The first Black Harmony Gathering was held on the banks of the Yarra River celebrating the cultural diversity in Harmony Week.
2005
March 23: The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) abolished.
Yvette Holt wins the David Unaipon Award for Anonymous Premonition.
Alexander Brown wins the Kate Challis RAKA Award for the poetry collection Ngarla Songs. Brown had worked with the linguist Brian Geytenbeek to collect, translate and assemble the most telling songs of the Ngarla people (who retain their ownership of these songs). In the resulting poems in English Brown gives us images, movement and gestures with a direct physicality.
Larissa Behrendt wins the Commonwealth Writers Prize, South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best First Book for Home.
Ruby Langford Ginibi wins the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Special Award.
Wesley Enoch wins the Patrick White Playwrights' Award for The Story of the Miracles at Cookie's Table.
Cheryl Buchanan is awarded National NAIDOC Person of the Year jointly with Rodney Dillon.
Albert Holt is awarded National NAIDOC Elder of the Year (Male).
Musician Kerrianne Cox is awarded National NAIDOC Artist of the Year. Novelist Joleen Ryan is awarded National NAIDOC Youth of the Year.
Tony Briggs wins the Helpmann award for his play, The Sapphires, produced by Melbourne Theatre Company.
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