Saeed Maasarwe said his family is not motivated by revenge over the rape and murder of his daughter Aiia Maasarwe, as he remembered her as a positive woman who wanted to help everybody.

An array of Pacific Island communities converged on the Mackay Botanical Gardens last weekend to take part in the region's first Pasifika Festival. The event highlighted Mackay's diverse cultures by showcasing traditional artwork, food and performances.

Celebrities like Pink and touring shows like Cirque du Soleil are motivating people to take up the art of aerial acrobatics. Kayleigh McMullen has opened up her own school in Coolum on the Sunshine Coast and says it is attracting people of all ages.

For the first time in 10 years, the annual Queensland Variety Bash has departed from Cairns.

The sound of chatter and wind instruments being blown at different times fills the room at the Launceston College music centre as the band members warm up for rehearsals.

In the early hours of Friday morning when most people were waking and getting ready for work or school, 200 military personnel in north Queensland were close to finishing 24 hours of hard work.

Tulips, daffodils, tulips and more tulips. You know you're at the Nannup Flower and Garden Festival in August when there are tulips everywhere

Students from Launceston's Newstead College have been given the opportunity to rehearse and perform in the historic Princess Theatre for their production of Pippin.

Young actors made up to look like accident victims experience the life-changing process of getting into character as they aim to reduce the youth road toll. Warning: This story contains graphic imagery and content that may upset some people.

The Tweed Valley Banana Festival will crown its 60th queen this year.

Spring is in the air in Newcastle, with the season's racing carnival officially launched.

The Swell Sculpture Festival is on again and Currumbin Beach is coming alive with colour, movement and thought-provoking works of art.

Hundreds of people descended on Rollingstone in north Queensland this weekend to celebrate the humble pineapple. Among them were dozens of international visitors who organisers hope will spread the word of the Rollingstone Pineapple Festival around the world.

Every year at the start of spring the streets of Port Pirie are filled with the colour, sounds and sights of a festival with its roots in a medieval Italian fishing community.

The brightly painted Chill'n Beanz trailer is not just another place to score a shot of caffeine in Toowoomba, it is also a place for young people to learn skills and confidence, all during school hours.

Sixth generation dairy farmers in Yandoit in central Victoria's bushland stick to what they know and love.

Gymnastics clubs from around the country converge in Bendigo for the National Club Championships.

After a sublime performance by the Vampires, some were saying that the newly constructed Pavilion at Bermagui may be the highest quality music venue between Nowra and Melbourne. The concert, presented by a local community group in a venue built by another local community group, combined a world-class band with an acoustically designed world-class venue.

When it comes to fashions on the field, it helps to have a head start.

Step inside one of the beautiful open gardens on show during the Renmark Rose Festival. Artemis and Harry Ppiros are Greek immigrants who kept their green thumbs busy after retiring from their Riverland fruit block.

From live music, dumpling demonstrations and kite making workshops for kids, to self-defence lessons, bird watching, contemporary dance performances and a bamboo lantern parade, there'll be something for everyone at BrisAsia this year! Delight your senses with 80 events jam packed into three weeks from January 27 - February 19 across the city.

With Australia's music festivals cancelled one after another as the coronavirus crisis unfolded, there was finally some good news yesterday for local music lovers.

In his first two international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond explored what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now in the third book in his trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crisis.

John Houghton, a Welsh atmospheric physicist who bridged the science, policy and religious communities and served as lead editor of ground-breaking studies for the United Nations’ climate science advisory group when it won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, died April 15 in Wales. He was 88.

Alison Whitehead ran up and down a local hill until she reached the equivalent elevation of Mount Everest's peak

Consumers are increasingly asking for it and Meat and Livestock Australia says it's achievable carbon neutrality by 2030.

A 21-year-old is flown to hospital after an axe hit his helmet while he was taking part in a mock medieval battle at Hawkesbury Showground in New South Wales.

Locals in the Victorian town of Daylesford say they are shocked and devastated by council's decision to remove an "aggressive" gaggle of geese from the area, describing them as "a bit of an icon" in the tourism hotspot.

After fracturing his pelvis and nearly bleeding out after last year's Cox Plate, Kings Will Dream is set to write another chapter in an unbelievable comeback story at Moonee Valley, during a fortnight of intense scrutiny over the treatment of horses within the racing industry.

A jury hears of the moment the woman accused of causing a crash that killed four people in western Victoria realised the deceased were "probably grandmothers" as well.

Rare insights into leading authors with Radio National's Ramona Koval.

Rob Minshull produces Weekends with Warren and is an avid reader

This year's NAIDOC Week theme is Voice. Treaty. Truth. But the truth is that many Indigenous people feel voiceless when it comes to expressing where Australia stands on treaty today.

A joint operation between the Australian Border Force, ACT and NSW police has discovered about 384kg of cocaine inside a second-hand excavator bound for a regional NSW business. (Supplied: Australian Border Force)

Police seize more than $140 million worth of cocaine stashed in the arm of an excavator that was destined for a business in a small NSW town.

MORNING BRIEFING: NSW police hunt for Sunjay Dayal, who escaped while undertaking maintenance work in Mount Kiera, while three cars set alight in a garage triggers the fire alarms inside a Liverpool unit block.

A man who had a container of railway detonators in his bag on a train on the New South Wales south coast pleads guilty to possessing an explosive device in public.

The graves of five young WWII servicemen have been destroyed at a NSW cemetery in what has been described as a "disgraceful" act of vandalism.

A man charged with the manslaughter of Valmai Birch, 34, at her NSW south coast home eight years ago is accused of hogtieing her and causing her death by asphyxiation or other means, before putting her body in a wheelie bin.

The Hollywood star and avid pilot visits the Albion Park aircraft museum where he will donate his Boeing 707.

Coronavirus has crippled the global tourism industry and in Thailand that means it includes elephants. As a result of the pandemic many elephants are heading back to their natural habitats.

It's discovered that a devastating cyclone in Vanuatu last month actually unearthed a treasure trove of World War II US military relics, which were washed out of embankments along various shorelines.

So far, only eight COVID-19 vaccine efforts have moved to clinical trial stage. And five of them involve Chinese companies or government research institutes. Here's why it would be hugely important to China's Government if a domestic company prevails.

A remote community in Western Australia equips students for the future through an independent teaching program at home, and by sending senior students to a boarding school 1,500km away for vocational training.

Scientist Richard Connor has discovered that Monkey Mia's dolphins have the most complex non-human society on the planet.