Labor's Home Affairs spokesperson Kristina Keneally has sparked controversy after declaring the COVID-19 crisis should force a revamp of the temporary migration program.

News Corp Australia claimed CSIRO's Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness in Geelong Victoria has been collaborating with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

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.

Detectives charge a man with murdering a woman who was found shot dead at a house in north-west Victoria at the weekend.

A council in far west New South Wales has started trucking water to the remote Darling River town of Pooncarie, which is expected to run out of raw water within days.

The price of water increases to $980 a megalitre for South Australia, as industry bodies expect prices to reach Millennium Drought levels.

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.

This year's flood event at Lake Eyre delivers a spectacular natural wonder, and brings new life to Central Australia and a crucial economic boost to remote businesses.

Two homicides in two months last year rocked Maryborough in regional Victoria, a town whose residents already felt they'd become too accustomed to putting themselves down over the years.

School principal Michelle Wilson spent a stressful two hours on the phone, convinced she owed $8,000 and could soon be arrested if she didn't pay up. Then she realised the whole thing was an elaborate hoax.

Every night Allanah Morel packs her daughter's school bag ahead of time because she knows that by the next morning she could be in too much pain to get out of bed.

The ABC understands the Victorian Department of Corrections considers the Hopkins Correctional Centre in Ararat, 200 kilometres west of Melbourne, to be the most appropriate place to send the high-profile cleric.

In the end, just as in the beginning, this was a case about two little boys and their battle with the world's third most-senior Catholic. And today, child protection won, writes Louise Milligan.

Around one person dies on Victoria's rail lines every week, with most long-term train drivers experiencing at least one fatality in their career.

A Victorian man accused of murdering Adelaide mother-of-two Suzanne Poll at her workplace in 1993 will plead not guilty to the charge, a court has heard.

Police charge Melbourne Cup-winning horse trainer Darren Weir and two other men with animal cruelty offences following raids on Weir's stables near Ballarat and Warrnambool in January.

Running With Scissors is a humourous yet disturbing account of his observations of the unhinged world he now inhabits.

Chloe Maxwell

Beekeepers in New South Wales are hand-feeding their hives as the drought cripples the bees' ability to make honey, with a shortage expected to sting consumers at the checkout.

A woman on trial accused of murdering her partner allegedly poisoned him with a "cocktail of dangerous medication" so she could benefit financially from his death, an Adelaide court is told.

Jobs growth versus environmental concerns reignite with a coal company's proposed expansion under Sydney's water supply.

An Adelaide judge remains tight-lipped on his reasons for declaring a mistrial in the case of a woman accused of poisoning her partner with a cocktail of dangerous medication.

The renowned painter launches legal action against his stepdaughter, saying she influenced her dying mother who "suffered from cognitive impairment" to withdraw $2.2 million from a bank account in 2016.

The NDIS cuts off at 65, so anyone who gets an acquired disability has to make do with an aged care supplement. This is not enough, according to a family caring for a quadriplegic.

Lorelei and Peter Murko, and other members of their family, have taken an incredible journey together because of problems they have faced with their kidneys.

St George Illawarra player Jack de Belin has withdrawn his legal challenge to the NRL's no-fault stand down policy, with his lawyers telling a Federal Court in Sydney there was "no utility" in proceeding.

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.

A court has been shown video footage of a carer yelling and swearing at her 81-year-old dementia patient before police allege she punched the elderly woman in the leg.

Winds of up to 90 kilometres per hour leave a trail of destruction across Sydney, with rescue crews pushed to their limits and warnings still in place for southern parts of NSW.

Artist Tanya Stubbles created 22 artworks for a Chinese client six months after leaving a brain injury unit in Sydney.

As students stress and cram for final-year exams in the hope of getting into university, a small group of students prepares to finish high school without having to sit one test.

The University of Adelaide says the departures of chancellor Kevin Scarce and vice-chancellor Peter Rathjen have nothing to do with its finances despite admitting it is facing a budget shortfall of $100 million.

As most of the world struggles to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, one country which should have been vulnerable is keeping deaths and case numbers extremely low.

Celebrities, cooks and internationally renowned performers offer online masterclasses, as those in coronavirus isolation look to upskill.

The ACT Government's decision ends weeks of uncertainty about when the gradual return to "normal" lessons would begin. It comes as Opposition Leader Alistair Coe tells ABC radio that the coronavirus pandemic has ended.

MORNING BRIEFING: The proposed changes allow councils to apply the rate cap more flexibly and comes as local governments suffer financial hardship from the coronavirus pandemic.

Police arrest a 67-year-old man and his son on Queensland's Sunshine Coast over an alleged line dancing scam after searching for the pair for more than a year.

South Australia records its first new COVID-19 case in a fortnight, with a man who returned from the UK in March testing positive weeks after he is believed to have contracted the virus.

It seems famed street artist Banksy is particularly inspired by the challenge the coronavirus pandemic has presented humanity as he gifts a new artwork honouring the live-saving efforts of medical professionals to a British hospital.

After five months of evidence from more than 200 witnesses, the Claremont serial killings trial is nearing an end. Here is the state's case against Bradley Edwards for the murders of three young women in Perth.

Tasmanian students can return to classrooms by the end of May under the Premier's plan to roll back coronavirus restrictions. Rules around national parks, funerals and aged care visits will ease from Monday, with two consecutive days without new cases.

A white former police officer and his son are arrested and charged with the murder of an unarmed black man whose death had been captured on video.

James Stuart Logue, a 29-year-old kitchenhand, also pleaded guilty to watching videos of young children being sexually abused in "depraved" ways.