Six months after Murrurundi's water ran out, the community is struggling to survive on extreme, level-six water restrictions, in a grim prediction of the future for other country towns facing their own impending water crisis.

Brenda Marney, 73, is charged with animal cruelty offences after a mutilated magpie is found at her home on the NSW mid-north coast police believe she lures animals with food before capturing and torturing them.

A research project is underway to determine the impact of the controversial Lord Howe Island rodent eradication program on a threatened currawong species and wider ecosystem.

There are reports of property damage in the town of Darawank, north of Forster-Tuncurry on the NSW north coast where a bushfire is burning at emergency level.

Social media vision of three bushfires burning on the NSW north coast. An emergency declaration has been issued by the NSW RFS with homes under threat.

Emergency crews gain the upper hand in fighting 85 fires across NSW but two blazes near Forster-Tuncurry escalate again.

DAILY BRIEFING: TasWater has lifted a boil water alert that was put in place on Monday for Lauderdale, Acton Park, Roches Beach and Seven Mile Beach, but investigations into how the drinking supply became infected with E. coli are still underway.

An app designed to alert South Australians about bushfires is still not ready as total fire bans were issued amid sweltering temperatures. A watch and act message has been issued for a fire burning near Swan Reach in the state's Murraylands region.

Murrell

Temperatures in parts of NSW are expected to exceed 40 degrees including the outskirts of Sydney.

A group of nine irrigators has lodged a class action in the NSW Supreme Court against the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, claiming its negligent water management has caused $750 million in losses.

Legal group Slater and Gordon reaches an agreement with the former milk processing co-operative on behalf of 1,300 investors.

A group of Barwon-Darling farmers have offered to sell their water entitlements at a value which would encourage new owners "not to grow cotton".

A random survey of people living in the Murray-Darling Basin shows support for reallocating water from irrigators to Indigenous communities.

Taxpayer investments and the water market are making irrigation more efficient and reducing Murray-Darling's base flow. Here's what needs to happen next, write Q J Wang and Avril Horne.

As Australia's competition watchdog prepares to study the Murray-Darling Basin's $2 billion water trade, a trip up the river finds irrigators are worried about the market's "unintended" consequences.

High water prices in the Murray-Darling Basin are blamed on foreign investors and corporate speculators. The simple truth is they are caused mostly by lack of rain.

A Murray-Darling Basin inspector-general will focus of water efficiency, compliance and theft under a proposal by Water Minister David Littleproud.

NSW and Victoria commit to an independent review of Murray-Darling water modelling, and Inspector-General Mick Keelty flags the possibility of unearthing more corruption.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will investigate who actually owns Australia's water, in particular the Murray-Darling Basin's $2 billion water market.

New analysis of water prices in the southern Murray-Darling Basin finds water prices sitting at levels only previously seen during the Millennium Drought.

Mick Keelty says a string of scandals involving water thefts and corruption have fostered public mistrust in the plan to save the Murray-Darling Basin.

Police believe human remains found in the Murray River at Albury belong to 21-year-old university student Bigul Pandit, who drowned while swimming with friends in January.

As farming groups lobby the Federal Government to take action on soaring water prices, water brokers warn some irrigators will be worse off if the Government intervenes in the trade.

Australia's largest cotton farm Cubbie Station has opened its gates to local government councillors from across the Murray-Darling Basin.

There are warnings for consumers and farmers that Australia's biggest food bowl, the Murray-Darling Basin, is bracing for a grim end to the year.

Angry protesters have called for the sacking of the Federal Water Minister and hurled an effigy of him sitting on a toilet into the Murray River.

While the competition watchdog investigates Australia's water market, those pushing for a central exchange for water trading say it could solve many problems.

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority warns it will be another ugly summer, telling politicians that unless it rains soon, water conditions will get worse.

One squid, most likely the diamondback squid, lays an estimated 40,000 free-floating eggs into Great Barrier Reef waters, in an event for the species that experts say lives fast and dies young.

More than 50 bushfires are burning in Queensland amid potentially catastrophic, hot and windy conditions. Emergency warnings are in place for fires near Stanthorpe in the state's south.

Queenslanders recall the nights in the 60s spent dancing in the hall of the Binna Burra Lodge the same place where hundreds of others have married the love of their life after fire guts the heritage-listed resort.

Authorities and families are on high alert as homes are lost across the state with dozens of fires burning in places including the Gold Coast hinterland at Binna Burra, and Stanthorpe and Applethorpe on the Granite Belt.