The Prime Minister weighs into the debate on a tweet by Victoria's Deputy Chief Health Officer while the state's Premier says there are "far more important matters to talk about".

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews responds to the state's Deputy Chief Health Officer's tweet comparing coronavirus to Captain Cook's arrival in Australia at a press conference on May 1, 2020.

A Senate inquiry into a possible cancer cluster on Victoria's Bellarine Peninsula hears evidence from high-profile lawyer Peter Gordon of a "disturbing number of cancer cases" connected to the early years of Bellarine Secondary College.

Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos says eight employees have tested positive to coronavirus.

The federal Education Minister accused Daniel Andrews of "taking a sledgehammer" to schooling over his reluctance to reopen classrooms.

Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan accused the Victorian Premier of jeopardising the national consensus on Australia's coronavirus response be refusing to reopen classrooms.

Meadowglen Primary School in Epping was closed after a teacher tested positive to coronavirus.

Victoria's health department counsels Annaliese van Diemen over her tweet comparing the impact of COVID-19 with Captain Cook's arrival in Australia, but clears her of breaching the Victorian public sector code of conduct.

A racehorse brought to Australia for the 2016 Spring Carnival has been euthanased after falling in a jumps race in south-west Victoria.

Sam Bloomfield makes medieval-inspired armour and art in a process he says is a bit like dressmaking — only with metal, not cloth.

Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas says casual public sector workers who have lost their jobs due to coronavirus will receive fortnightly payments if $1500, May 6, 2020.

Hundreds of thousands of eggs are removed from the shelves of supermarkets across four states following an outbreak of salmonella cases linked to an exotic strain of the bacteria.

Victorian agriculture authorities are investigating allegations of cruelty at the Bridgewater Poultry Farm, after footage released by Animal Liberation appeared to show workers mistreating chickens they were culling.

Footage from a Victorian poultry farm, released by animal activists, appears to show workers stretching the necks of chickens and throwing them onto a concrete floor.

With production doubling in the past five years thanks to new extraction technology and investment, Victorian mines are digging deeper where most of its gold actually is.

The daughters of Kerry Robertson, 61, the first Victorian to use the state's Voluntary Assisted Dying Act, say their mother's death was "beautiful and peaceful".

Hopeful prospectors flock to Victoria's goldfields in search of a lucky strike, but the region is also a hotbed of scientific discovery thanks to the number of meteorites found there.

A local council warns Victoria's "culture of recycling" is at risk as the state's waste crisis deepens and an estimated 780 rubbish trucks' worth of recyclable material is sent to landfill in a week.

The Swan Hill and Robinvale regions produce more $800 million in agricultural goods each year, but a "dangerous" C-class road connects them to Melbourne. The community says the lack of funding is a "human rights issue" and the system "needs to change".

Buried among the hundreds of witness statements submitted to the aged care royal commission is a table showing how one of the country's biggest for-profit chains employs just one registered nurse for 106 residents on the night shift.

James Day died from complications caused by influenza eight days after he was admitted to hospital in eastern Victoria. He is one of 37 people killed so far this year.

Victorian public housing tenants say residents could forgo medication or heating because of higher rental prices after the State Government's market review.

A man has been ordered to stand trial over the death of his partner, who was hit by a car in the driveway of her Traralgon home.

Lado Alphonse says he was a "reject in society" before being recruited by the Cora Lynn Cobras. Now, he is among several players bringing new life to the regional Victorian football community.

Teachers will be offered up to $50,000 to relocate from Melbourne to rural and regional schools desperate for qualified teachers, as part of a new Victorian Government plan to tackle flagging results.

Police find the bodies of Caleb Forbes and Shannon Lowden in their car, almost a week after they went missing near the Baw Baw National Park in eastern Victoria.

Latrobe Regional Hospital in Victoria's Gippsland has been ordered to pay more than $31,000 to a former security guard who was sacked last year.

The Victorian Government investigates the scale of a ransomware attack by "sophisticated cyber criminals" on some of the state's major regional hospitals that has forced healthcare providers to go offline.

A special kind of election is unfolding across Victoria as the Aboriginal communities taking part in the treaty process cast their votes to elect a First Peoples' Assembly.

A planned $17-million hi-tech education precinct in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, a centrepiece of the Hazelwood transition program, is in jeopardy after the project's major partner pulls out.

The Victorian Government announces an immediate ban on all old growth logging and the phasing out of native timber logging in a transition plan that will cost $120 million over the next ten years.

The family of brutally murdered woman Karen Chetcuti, whose killer was a rapist on parole, is suing the Victorian Government for her wrongful death.

How will the Victorian Government find the cash to deliver its costly promises as stamp duty falls and federal funding hopes are not realised? Through what the Treasurer warned would be a "Budget of hard choices".

Four children are among eight people rescued from cars trapped in snow as Victoria is hit by unusually heavy May falls.

By the time the young platypus was discovered in a river in Victoria's Alpine Shire, the bands had worn wounds down to the bone.

Australia's largest timber building, the Mount Buffalo Chalet, will stay mothballed through another Australian winter without undergoing any development works.

Victoria's high country huts, preserved and maintained by around 240 volunteers, are each a little piece of history with an important job to do.

A former primary school teacher who abused 38 of his students at several country Victorian schools is sentenced to 12 years in jail, but some of his victims say the sentence should be longer.

Gilbert Parker is remembered by friends as a "fine man", after he went missing in seas off Fiji when his helicopter crashed as he attempted to take a mother and her two-year-old son to hospital.

Wodonga grandmother Janice Marcuzzi is among those residents crossing state borders to take advantage of container deposit schemes.

The Government believes the projects will create more than 600 jobs and generate enough clean energy to power more than 80,000 homes, while farmers have labelled the decision as "gutless".

Murderer Michael Cardamone, who tortured and callously killed Victorian woman Karen Chetcuti-Verbunt in 2016, has his life jail term upheld by appeal judges who say the "dreadful punishment" is fit for "a dreadful crime".

Authorities discover more than 120 dead native birds, believed to have been poisoned, on a rural property in northern Victoria.

Voting opens for Victorian Aboriginal communities to elect the people who will help make the rules for what are expected to be the first treaty negotiations in Australia.

Police have confirmed the body of a man found in missing NSW woman Ruth Ridley's car in Victoria is that of her estranged husband.

The Victorian Government's historic treaty negotiations with the state's Aboriginal communities are one step closer this week, with the election of the First Peoples' Assembly. But the toughest yards to meaningful treaties still lie ahead.

The group representing Victoria's councils calls for organisations like independent schools, pokies clubs and churches to pay their fair share of rates because "mum and dad homeowners" are unfairly cross-subsidising private and commercial enterprises.

A Victorian man who sent 52 packages filled with asbestos to embassies in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra has been sentenced to one year in prison.