Australia was the host nation for the 2000 Summer Paralympics which was held in Sydney. Australia competed in the games between the 18 and 29 October. The team consisted of 285 athletes in 18 sports with 148 officials. It was the country's largest ever Paralympic delegation to a Games. Australia has participated at every Summer Paralympic Games since its inception. Australia finished at the top of the medal tally with 63 gold, 39 silver and 47 bronze medals to total 149 medals for the games. This was the first time and the only time to date that Australia has finished on top of either an Olympic or Paralympic medal tally. The most successful sports were athletics, cycling, equestrian, swimming and wheelchair tennis.

Notable Australian performances were:

The games were the eleventh Summer Paralympics since its commencement in 1960. The opening ceremony took place on 18 October, followed by eleven days of intense competition. As the hosting nation, Sydney implemented a number of conservation and environmental education actions. The dedication to water saving techniques during both the Olympic and Paralympic games led to praise from the Ineternational Paralympic Committee. Many held the organization of the games in high esteem. This success was attributed to the coordination between the Sydney Paralympic Organising Committee and the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games.

The Mascot for the games was ‘Lizzie’ the frill-neck lizard, a well-known Australian animal. The voice for ‘Lizzie’ was Olivia Newton-John, singer and actor. ‘Lizzie’ was well marketed and considered a successful iconic representation of the Sydney Paralympic games.

Australia topped the medal count for the first time in games history, with a total of 149 medals. Notable performances from the Australian team include Siobhan Paton (swimming) with six gold medals, Tim Sullivan (track and field) with five gold medals and Matthew Gray (cycling) with two gold medals.

Several Australian venues were used to host the Sydney 2000 Paralympic games. Listed below are the main locations and a brief description of the events at each:

Huge crowds were drawn to these locations, namely some 340 000 school children. Schools were provided with free day tickets for students to attend, promoting the major schools education project which ran alongside the games. The Sydney Olympic Games Organising Committee (SOCOG) and the Sydney Paralympic Organising Committee (SPOC) held an administrational and organisational partnership to deliver three months of festivals including the Olympics Games, Paralympics Games and cultural festival. This partnership alleviated transitional issues present at the 1996 Atlanta games, due to cross involvement between the committees at all events.

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