A fortnightly welfare payment for farmers, considered to be the cornerstone of drought assistance, should be removed from social security legislation, an independent review recommends.

An agricultural chemical used to control mites is believed to have killed hundreds of wedge-tailed eagles in northern Victoria.

A new foundation to help fund lawsuits against perpetrators of child sexual abuse is launched, with profits from successful legal action used to help victims and survivors.

Tenancy advocates say tenancy act reform in the Northern Territory has fallen behind the rest of the country but a real estate peak body says proposed "socialist" legislation could drive out property investors.

Authorities are warning WA residents to prepare emergency kits for up to five days and to avoid "last minute" preparations, despite below-average cyclone predictions for the 201920 season.

A man in his 70s is remanded in custody over a string of alleged child abuse offences uncovered in a joint investigation between NSW Police, Northern Territory Police and the Australian Federal Police.

South Australia's Correctional Services Minister criticises prison officers for using a decoy in an attempt to shield a notorious murderer and rapist from media attention.

Online scammers operating through social media and at least one crowdfunding site trick friends of a pilot who died in a Darwin plane crash into donating money for his funeral.

Two men walked into a Canberra McDonald's restaurant and ordered a meal while still covered in the blood of a man they had just attacked, according to court documents.

Garry Marsh, 73, pleads guilty to indecently assaulting a student while he coached him in rugby union at Canberra's St Edmund's College in 1979, and will spend two years behind bars.

Barnaby Joyce sees "no problems" with extending cashless welfare to families receiving the Farm Household Allowance.

A case worker responsible for murdered Canberra boy Bradyn Dillon admits she was overwhelmed by her job, and felt child protection services did not support her in dealing with the boy's abusive father.

Five young detainees used makeshift weapons, including a computer, in an assault last month that left multiple staff members at the Canberra facility injured, a new report finds.

Disability advocate Christina Ryan says she was subjected to a "dehumanising" and excessive security check at Parliament House, where she has been hundreds of times before.

After 25 years as a sniper in war zones, Robert later went on to photograph road fatalities. After being plagued by anxiety, depression and flashbacks, he has finally found peace with the power of painting.

The ACT becomes the first Australian jurisdiction to legalise the possession, use and cultivation of small amounts of cannabis.

They completed less than two in three peak services, but electric buses are still a "viable alternative" for Canberra according to the ACT's Transport Minister.

A historic train carriage is destroyed in a suspicious fire at the Canberra Railway Museum, just hours before its reopening. The 1930s passenger carriage was gutted in the blaze and two adjacent cars were also damaged.

One of Australia's former top police officers says he is not guilty of the alleged offences, which his lawyer describes as "trivial".

South Australia's capital records the highest methamphetamine use of all the cities in the world compared in a paper based on wastewater samples, but a researcher says initiatives to tackle this problem have had an effect.

Three accused Rebels bikies who appealed to the High Court to overturn an order preventing them from associating with one another have lost their bid, clearing the way for the NSW Police Commissioner to impose strict restraints on them, including a curfew and restricted mobile phone possession.

Stagnant domestic production and a slump in global raw sugar prices require serious action to combat future declines in the $2 billion sugar industry, a report finds.

A leg wound that became infected after a fall eventually claimed the life of Bertha Aalberts, but her Melbourne nursing home had no record of the injury's severity, a Cairns hearing of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety is told.

Celebrity chef Maggie Beer says nothing can forgive the abysmal standard of meals given to some aged care residents as the royal commission into the sector hears people were served meals from trolleys near maggot-infested rubbish bins.

For the first time in his life, Alistair Bowie, 26, doesn't have to share a home with up to a dozen extended family members and he helped to build the house himself.

A man accused of murdering a woman in Far North Queensland changes his plea to guilty two days into his Supreme Court trial and will face sentencing this morning.

The makers of Rexona, the deodorant identified by retailers and police as the product most misused by Queensland children, acknowledges its product was implicated in five deaths across two states through misuse but says there is "nothing that currently exists" to fix the problem.

A report by Human Rights Watch says new regulations to tighten the use of chemical restraints on dementia patients has actually normalised the treatment to the detriment of patients.

A research trip to far north Queensland was supposed to find dozens of Australia's endangered sawfish but they didn't find a single one.

Robyn Hausler continued paying her mortgage and rates for six years, not realising the house she'd lived in for 20 years wasn't hers anymore. Now a court has ruled she can have her property back.

A fast-moving bushfire is contained after burning down a property and threatening several more in a rural area west of Cooktown in Cape York.

The operator of a Gold Coast aged care facility is accused of taking money from the bank accounts of residents at the same time they were being evacuated because the centre was closing.

As another large vessel sinks below the waterline on the Gold Coast, the Queensland Transport Minister says derelict boats are becoming a real problem and taxpayers are being forced to cover the cost.

Concerns are raised in the Queensland Parliament over the time it took a Gold Coast state school to suspend an eight-year-old boy accused of sexually assaulting his classmate.

Gold Coast man John William Chardon, accused of killing his wife Novy, allegedly told her friend she had "packed her luggage and left", before propositioning her about whether she would be interested in an affair, a trial has heard.

It's described as Big Day Out on the beach, with promoters of Australia's latest music festival promising it will deliver the ultimate party on Coolangatta Beach, but community opposition is growing over the event.

Millionaire Gold Coast businessman and self-described "philanthropist" John Chardon tells a Brisbane court he sometimes had sex with students he sponsored, but says he never "intentionally" hurt his wife, Novy.

A man is taken into police custody in relation to a car that crashed through the front of a house on the Gold Coast early on Sunday morning, leaving a teenage girl trapped inside.

Repair specialists say it is part of a growing trend which has seen the invasive Asian house gecko destroying cooling systems across New South Wales and Queensland.

Gold Coast Deputy Mayor Donna Gates refuses to comment on a ruling handed down by the Office of the Independent Assessor made public this week.

After increasing pressure on the Queensland Government, all children held in the maximum security police watch house in Brisbane have now been removed and placed into youth detention centres.

The misuse of pesticides on Australian farms is threatening overseas markets, according to industry group Pulse Australia.

Police declare a crime scene at a home in Rockhampton after human remains are found following a suspicious house fire overnight.

A new species of rockcod, or grouper, is confirmed by the Queensland Museum after two years of testing its DNA, following the discovery of several specimens at a fish market in 2017.

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