Police charge two brothers, aged 18 and 20, over an unprovoked attack on an off-duty senior Victorian police officer near a Melbourne train station.

Laurent Hayez, father of missing Belgian backpacker Theo Hayez, supported by his sons Godfather JP Hayez and cousin Lisa Hayez.

Book-loving Tasmanians are bucking the trend and turning to libraries in their thousands, less than a year after the state became the first in Australia to abolish fines and processing fees for overdue books.

The father of missing Belgian backpacker Theo Hayez says unlocking his son's last WhatAsapp messages could be key to find him alive. But a leading expert says the tech giant is incapable of unjumbling the "garbled" encrypted messages.

Ex-detective Paul Dale tells a royal commission he has waited years to expose "corruption" within Victoria Police over the use of Nicola Gobbo as an informer, and that his sexual relationship with the woman known as Lawyer X has been exaggerated.

Former drug squad detective Paul Dale wanted to speak to gangland bosses Tony Mokbel and Carl Williams nine days after he was arrested for the burglary of a drug house, the royal commission hears.

MORNING BRIEFING: The ex-girlfriend of a woman who fell to her death from a Sydney apartment block is expected to be charged with her murder, while a backpacker says the alarm about Theo Hayez's disappearance should have been raised much earlier.

The family of missing man and suspected murder victim Michael Purse makes an emotional plea for information on his fate, with his mother breaking down as she described her anguish.

SA Police believe an Adelaide woman missing near Sedan in South Australia's eastern Mount Lofty Ranges has "suffered a misadventure" and might have been injured or bitten by a snake.

Adelaide woman Deborah Pilgrim says the kindness of strangers who helped find her after three days lost in the bush is "overwhelming".

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Tony Abbott's comments were not his words and Bill Shorten says Bob Hawke would've dismissed Abbott's comments about having both a 'Labor heart and head'. May 17, 2019.

Police have released CCTV footage of missing backpacker Theo Hayez at a convenience store the night he disappeared.

The father of a missing Belgian backpacker, Theo Hayez, has called on encrypted messaging service WhatsApp to release the messages his son sent and received the night he went missing.

The father of a missing Belgian backpacker has appealed for access to his son's encrypted messages, saying they are needed urgently to locate him.

Disgraced former drug detective Paul Dale tells the Royal Commission into Management of Police Informants he has waited years to expose what he says is "corruption" within the highest ranks of Victoria Police over the use of Nicola Gobbo as a police informer.

Officials are searching for a man in his 20s believed to have fallen from rocks into the ocean at Western Australia's Warrenup Beach.

Police divers join the search for missing 25-year-old Thomas Rae who disappeared while rock fishing in a remote corner of WA.

A search is underway for missing 67-year-old Tony Hickey whose explosives truck caught fire and blew up near Sandstone in Western Australia's Mid West, with police unable to find him at the scene.

Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter says he has sought final advice from his department on the release of unpublished documents relating to Cardinal George Pell's handling of child sexual abuse complaints.

Retired naval officer Tony Pincott thought he lost his service medal in 1996, but a metal detectorist located it on a Queensland beach buried in the sand — 300km from where Mr Pincott left it.

For years, questions have been asked about what Cardinal George Pell might have known about clerical abuse within the Catholic Church. A report that could be released within days may give us the best answer we will ever get.

Fire season is officially over in southern Australia, but the work is only just beginning for the royal commission into the deadly crisis.

The findings are expected to reveal what the royal commission made of the evidence put before it about whether Cardinal Pell could or should have done more to prevent children from being abused by priests in the 1970s and 80s.

The family of a man who went missing in Victoria's Latrobe Valley last month say they "fear the worst" and are urging anyone who has seen him to contact police.

Heavy rain has fallen over parts of South Australia, providing desperately-needed relief for some of the state's farmers but unfortunately some areas have missed out.

A stalwart of rock band Rose Tattoo retrains for a role that will help him give back to the community.

Arno joined a neo-Nazi skin head group to "repulse" society. He says governments are ignoring his warnings about far-right extremists like he once was.

The NSW woman's remains were found in bushland two years after her disappearance in 2014. Today a judge has dismissed the jury in the trial of Ms McBride's ex-partner.

Homicide detectives say 29-year-old Danielle Easey, whose body was discovered wrapped in plastic in a creek near Lake Macquarie at the weekend, had become involved in drugs and was likely killed in mid-August.

Findings from a probe into alleged cover-ups of child abuse within the Catholic Church in NSW have identified credibility issues among members of its upper echelons.

While the search continues for five missing people who are feared dead off the NSW coast, one male has been confirmed by the Australian Defence Force as Warrant Officer Gregory Miller.

The Independent Planning Commission will be reviewed after a 21-year mining lease near Singleton was approved before public submissions closed a blunder the Opposition says will call the system's integrity into question.

More than 20 Pixie O'Harris artworks are being restored for an exhibition after the final paintings, which had been missing since the 1950s, mysteriously turn up without note or explanation.

An Australian man and his partner are murdered in Canada, backpackers have disappeared from NSW. This is how police will begin to solve the mystery of what happened, writes Wayne Petherick.

A wooden cross marked "2014" the same year that William Tyrrell went missing was among several false leads found during a large police search for the toddler around Kendall on the NSW mid-north coast, an inquest hears.

A search is underway for a small plane that has gone missing while flying two people from Murwillumbah to Taree in northern New South Wales, after it failed to arrive at its destination.

NSW Deputy Premier says asking mining companies to consider greenhouse gas emissions from Australian coal exports "doesn't pass the pub test"

Maggots were found in the mouth of a patient with advanced dementia by visiting family members, the Royal Commission into Aged Care sitting in WA has been told.

The WA Government has ordered Zenith Australia Investment Holding to stop clearing land at Yakka Munga station after a blockade by the area's native title holders.

Stories of families not being told when elderly relatives have died, old people found surrounded by food scraps and with maggots these are reasons why some people regard aged care in the regions a "death sentence".

At least 80 people were killed in a Japanese attack on Broome in 1942, and now the search is on for the wrecks of the flying boats where they died.

An arrest warrant has been issued after a man who served 12 years in prison for bashing and raping two tourists in WA's far north breached his post-sentence supervision order and failed to appear in court.

DAILY BRIEFING: A worker has been "narrowly missed" by a bolt falling from a crane at a Hobart worksite, and Madeleine Ogilvie meets with Labor to discuss her future.

Residents in the Hobart suburb of Risdon Vale say they are double checking their doors are locked as the search for a prison escapee enters its second day.