Sackings demanded and threats to withhold hundreds of thousands of dollars are at the centre of a clash between an outback community and a Commonwealth-owned business.

Last year, Nigel Shedden got married to wife Belinda and together they moved into their dream home. Today, the couple are living with Mr Shedden's mother, and the home they spent 18 months building has been sold.

A week ahead of the first hearings of the Disability Royal Commission in Townsville, a new survey of families of children with disability finds nearly no progress has been made on improving access to inclusive education.

Up to one in three Australian women have experienced birth trauma and one in 10 women emerge from childbirth with post-traumatic stress disorder, prompting calls for a major shake-up of the maternity system.

More than a dozen live venues and nightclubs across Canberra shut down in the 2018 financial year, but the Government hopes a new plan to make a racket will turn that trend around.

The owner of Mitchell Mistresses, Bradley Lester Grey used job interviews with "young and naive" sex workers to sexually assault them. Today he was found guilty of 20 sexual offences against seven employees.

Disability royal commission chair Ronald Sackville said commentators were discouraging people from telling their stories to the commission, but critics say the real discouragement is the absence of appropriate supports.

Steve Smith played every shot in the book and then some from outside the coaching manuals as his unbeaten 80 helped Australia to a seven-wicket win over Pakistan in their Twenty20 clash in Canberra.

A social media project inspired by the Humans of New York photoblog helps transform perceptions about Queensland's largest Aboriginal community, which was being torn apart by fights and bad press.

A remote Cape York community is in the fight of its life to save a unique rainforest that was devastated by a cyclone.

Running or riding hundreds of kilometres for fun, sport, and a physical and mental challenge.

After pleading guilty to drug possession and admitting he uses steroids, Afghanistan veteran and former Invictus Games competitor Tyrone Gawthorne is handed a suspended sentence for steroid and cocaine possession.

There are concerns, and equally hopes, that an extension to a ban on live sheep exports and cruelty charges against a live exporter are eroding the livestock exporting industry.

The 7-metre boat left Badu Island on Wednesday afternoon bound for Dauan island, just south of Papua New Guinea, with two men, two women and a nine-year-old boy on board, but it never arrived.

Australias largest barramundi farm is calling for a halt in whole-fish imports from Asia not because around 60 per cent is imported, but for biosecurity reasons.

State and territory leaders have agreed to establish a timetable to work towards a waste export ban.

Questions are raised over a Northern Territory university's continued ownership of a loss-making private business colleges in Cairns, at a time when the university is being offered a multi-million-dollar NT Government bailout to keep its training sector afloat.

A man accused of murdering a woman in Far North Queensland changes his plea to guilty two days into his Supreme Court trial and will face sentencing this morning.

People in parts of tropical Far North Queensland wake to early-morning frost as the region experiences its coldest August night in more than 60 years.

More dead wallabies have been found on a Cairns sporting field, taking the total number of carcasses in the past week to more than 30.

A marine physicist, who was awarded more than $1.2 million for his wrongful sacking earlier this month, has now raised more than half a million dollars to fight an appeal by James Cook University.

A Cape York mayor says a perpetual cycle of death is ripping his community apart and more can be done to detect chronic diseases earlier.

Queenslanders who are visually impaired say they're at risk of serious injury in busy carparks and on roads because they don't have the right to use disability parking spaces.

Astronaut screening programs have inspired a group of Australian scientists to study the individual personalities of 50 native rats and how they cope with environmental stresses.

A high-speed stolen car chase that allegedly included a woman being dragged from her car and a man being threatened with a syringe reignites anger over youth crime in Townsville and prompts demands for action.

People still living at a Gold Coast nursing home that was partially evacuated last Thursday are told the facility will be referred to the aged care royal commission, a move backed by operator HelpStreet.

Despite warnings it could undermine the impact of the Queensland Government's policy to curb alcohol-fuelled violence, casinos will remain exempt from ID scanning and reduced hours. The move comes as the Government scales back the scheme in parts of Brisbane and Ipswich.

Fire ants are spreading into new areas across south-east Queensland according to a Biosecurity Queensland insider who says the war to eradicate the potential killers is all but lost, a claim vehemently denied by the man tasked with stopping the spread.

Gold Coast man John William Chardon, accused of killing his wife Novy, allegedly told her friend she had "packed her luggage and left", before propositioning her about whether she would be interested in an affair, a trial has heard.

A research team is deployed in response to persistent smoke from a bushfire that has been burning for nearly two months in underground peat on the NSW Mid North Coast.

Travel giant TripAdvisor will no longer sell tickets to Sea World on the Gold Coast as part of its worldwide ban to help end whale, dolphin and porpoise captivity, with the theme park criticising the decision saying it is based on opinion rather than fact.

Authorities say complacent city dwellers need to learn from their regional cousins and have an emergency kit ready for when a natural disaster strikes, including three days' worth of water.

With efforts to ban orca captivity gaining momentum around the world, some experts say it's time to stop treating dolphins "like dogs".

Gold Coast Deputy Mayor Donna Gates refuses to comment on a ruling handed down by the Office of the Independent Assessor made public this week.

A Queensland community was hit hard when seven young people took their own lives in the space of six months. It's now striving to get more support to those in need.

What do you get when a peanut in a top hat, a chicken on the run and 150 Australian larrikins go on a road trip? A good time, and funds to support people with intellectual disabilities.

Fewer than one in 10 pregnant women in Australia have access to what is considered to be the 'gold standard' of maternity care, but one outback Queensland town has adopted the model in a bold move to empower local women and midwives.