They collect vital climate information, but weather balloons are also a daily contributor to plastic pollution levels it's a dilemma the Bureau of Meteorology is struggling to solve.

A telecommunications consumer group wants enhanced back-ups and safeguards after the telephone network for 50,000 people was cut off in the Kimberley.

Country racing clubs are pondering their futures as the Western Australian Government moves to sell off the nation's last state-owned betting agency.

Now that Western Australia's moratorium on fracking has been lifted, can gas from the Kimberley prove that it is economically viable?

A 36-year-old man is charged with murder following an alleged hit-and-run attack on two men in Perth's south in the early hours of Easter Sunday.

A social media video of a tourist hanging off a notorious WA cliff on Easter Sunday has prompted a furious response from a sea rescue group.

Thirty per cent of the Shire of Westonia is owned by corporate agricultural companies and locals say they are worried it is ruining the "sense of community" in the shire's small rural towns.

A 56-year-old woman has been charged with acts likely to endanger life for allegedly driving with her teenage daughter on the bonnet of a car.

Catching a glimpse of snow at the top of Bluff Knoll is a highly sought after WA bucket-list item, but this history of snowfall in WA spans Geraldton to Southern Cross.

A finishing school for western ringtail possums is not about airs and graces it's about helping orphaned possums get used to fending for themselves.

With WA moving closer to legalising voluntary assisted dying, the debate is shining a light on the desperate need for better palliative care, particularly in regional areas.

A tax imposed on West Australian ratepayers 16 years ago to support the state's emergency services has raised more than $3 billion, but just $256 million of that has gone to bush fire brigades, and they say this is forcing them to rattle the tin for some essential equipment.

A severe weather warning for Tasmania's east coast is cancelled but heavy rain continues to fall in the region, with snow in the highlands.

Cruise ships bring in millions of dollars to Tasmania each year, but tourism operators say if their schedules are not better managed they will continue to be both a "blessing and a curse".

This wild and rugged corner of north-west Tasmania is bursting with ancient history and dotted with artefacts, but you've probably never heard of it.

Tracey hoped putting her mother in an aged care home would give her a sense of security, but she ended up severely injuring herself in a fall. Warning: contains graphic images.

The Queenstown Crows have a home-ground advantage not many would envy. Rather than a field of lush, green grass, their oval is made of gravel.

A meteor possibly as small as a tennis ball bursts into the Earth's atmosphere causing a flash of light and a sound "like thunder" over Tasmania and Victoria, causing some to fear the worst.

When there's a smell of smoke in the air, bushfire survivor Michael King still feels jittery. He describes it as similar to "how a Vietnam veteran might feel if he hears the sound of a chopper overhead".

DAILY BRIEFING: Inmates involved in an escape from prison allegedly tried to get out earlier the same morning, and the Tasmanian Mayor defends renting a short-stay property to staff.

Almost half a century on, John is setting out to write a memoir about the incident and the events that followed. The process meant revisiting the event and the questions that have been left unanswered.

The Peck family want the Tasmanian Government to overhaul the Mental Health Act so clinicians can consider a patient's history and risk of self-harm when considering involuntary treatment orders.

In the past two years Kylie Jones has undergone eight surgeries to treat her endometriosis, including having her fallopian tubes and an ovary removed.

Photos and documents show nurses in the Roy Fagan Centre for aged psychiatric patients use old pagers and duress buttons held together with sticky tape.

A new survey of Tasmanian Newstart and Youth Allowance recipients finds poverty has forced more than a third to steal food, prompting renewed calls for the Federal Government to increase welfare payments.

Jorgen Jorgenson visited Van Diemen's Land when it was first settled 20 years later he would return as a convict and former self-proclaimed king of Iceland.

DAILY BRIEFING: A motorist is fined $963 and has had his car clamped for 28 days after allegedly being caught driving 172 kilometres per hour, and the University of Tasmania engages a "reputation protection" consultancy group.

Almost six years after her father died in a mining accident on Tasmania's west coast, Tameka Sylvester is still waiting for answers with the family learning of inquest news via social media.

Reports from people convinced they have seen Tasmanian tigers in the wild are released, with observers describing encounters with "cat-like creatures" they were "100 per cent certain" were thylacines.

Before moving to Tasmania, Malak Abdou was a veterinarian in Egypt. Now working on a farm, he's one of the lucky ones.

In just one month, Donna went from thinking she was "too young" to have breast cancer to having a mastectomy. Now she's decided to have her other breast removed.

Calls for a trial of the Federal Government's cashless welfare card in Tasmania spark fierce rebukes, including a comparison to "Nazi Germany" by one local mayor.

The Tasmanian Fire Service downgrades the threat from a bushfire in the Derwent Valley where a lack of fresh water had earlier made firefighting "a challenge".

DAILY BRIEFING: An 85-year-old retired GP has been missing in the state's north since Monday, and the Opposition calls on the Government to fix issues within TasWater after a boil water alert is issued for parts of Hobart.

A late spring blast of icy air from Antarctica has deposited up to 10 centimetres of snow on parts of Tasmania, but people are being urged to "get their skis on" quickly if they want to play in it.

Friends of a man allegedly murdered on South Australia's Nullarbor Plain on Monday say he had previously worked as an interpreter with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and the US Army in Afghanistan, and had "escaped the warzone" in moving to Australia.

A 77-year-old man dies on a rural property on the west coast of South Australia after falling into a grain bin. SafeWork SA will investigate.

International student associations call for more regulation of overseas migration agents as they reveal cheating on English tests required for Australian universities can be common practice.

Phoebe is your average 13-year-old, except that when she's not at school, she cares for her mum. She is among one in eight Australians who are unpaid carers, but are "largely unrecognised", something a new awareness campaign hopes to change.

A vulnerable malleefowl chick is the first to be discovered in a South Australian wildlife refuge and comes after the last cats and foxes were removed from the exclosure.

Some posts and memes on social media want foreign aid cut until Australians get back on their feet after natural disasters. But is this too simplistic?

Grain handling group Viterra announces it will transition from rail to road transport for movement of all grain on the Eyre Peninsula.

SA senator Sarah Hanson-Young says a crude Facebook post shared by a business owned by the Ceduna Mayor is "degrading" to women, but he says his Facebook account was hacked.

Six people have been charged following the alleged assault of two off-duty police officers at Burnside Village shopping centre in Adelaide's eastern suburbs.

Legal action is threatening the latest proposed sites for storing nuclear waste in South Australia, and the debate is dividing communities and traditional owners.