A holiday house in the middle of a beautiful forest may sound wonderful, but what if your favourite isolated retreat became a bushfire death trap?

A suspected tornado tore through the WA town of Harvey on Thursday night, damaging houses and bringing down trees, as a strong cold front battered the state's South West and brought heavy rain to Perth.

Surfing WA's Mark Lane is leading a growing charge of West Australian sporting organisations fighting off unhealthy sponsorships deals in sports.

DAILY BRIEFING: The search is on for a thief who stole a "large quantity" of citrus trees, while the Launceston City Council "sincerely apologises" to a homeless man

The youth unemployment rate in a Hobart suburb is 66 per cent higher than the national average, but young people say they are missing out on opportunities due to a lack of contacts.

Aurora chasers around Tasmania are treated to a spectacular display of the southern lights in conditions described as "just perfect".

They're some of the most senior figures in the country and are elected to represent the people, but are our politicians earning too much?

More than 170 little penguins have been mauled to death by dogs in Tasmania in the past year. Experts say the attacks are leaving the state's population in a "tenuous" position.

A new witness comes forward in the 50-year-old cold case of Tasmanian woman Lucille Butterworth, telling police he overheard a conversation about her body being dumped.

Politicians bearing promises have disappointed many miners in Tasmania's wild west in recent times, but increasing demand for metals for electric cars, wind turbines and solar panels is now driving more exploration.

Australians love and will pay top prices for proper coffee, stinky cheese, and top-of-the-range wines and olive oils. Now butter has joined that list.

The heat is on beekeepers to deliver healthy hives for pollination this spring and into the summer.

Tourists flock to this tulip farm to see the flowers, but it is under the ground where the serious farming is happening.

Staff working in a government building in Tasmania thought they struck gold when they found an artwork by Pierre-Auguste Renoir on the office walls, but museum curators were able to confirm it was a reproduction when they magnified the image and saw there were pixels.

A man who claims he can make it rain is building a following in the Victorian grain belt, where a group of farmers have paid for rainfall between May and October.

An Oscar-worthy, gripping yet harrowing film that had me tense throughout and drained at the end. Phew!

Beasts of the Southern Wild, shot as if in a dream, creating as it does a fully detailed other life that has so many connections to imaginary and real worlds we all know, is something rare in movies; a poetic work that also convinces you utterly...

University of Adelaide vice-chancellor Peter Rathjen takes indefinite leave less than 24 hours after chancellor Kevin Scarce resigned without public explanation yesterday.

Police investigate two fires in North Adelaide early this morning, including one which spread through the state branch office of the national doctors' union, causing up to $2 million damage.

Time is running out for businesses and home-owners to vacate their land in Adelaide's inner east ahead of demolition works, despite accusations the State Government has effectively blocked landowners from accessing the equity of their own homes.

For William Jane, the decline in Australian bread consumption has seen his business boom. In the space of two years, he's gone from baking 12 loaves a day to 800.

Australian dairy production is dropping, but a town in Victoria's Western District is taking advantage of changing consumer tastes to turn its fortunes around.

The world of Raj Manikam and his family came crashing down when a test found a hidden disease that could see them deported due to "significant costs to the community".

Fonterra has announced a loss of more than half a billion dollars and called on its Australian business to "stand on its own two feet" as the dairy company shifts its focus to its New Zealand operations.

Every year, thousands of short-tailed shearwaters, or mutton birds, descend on Victoria's coastline at the end of September or early October after a mammoth journey from the northern hemisphere, but so far this year they haven't shown up.

Feral pigs capable of leaving behind industrial-looking trails of destruction are posing a threat to one of the world's most significant archaeological sites.

Big business is set to be hit with hundreds of millions of dollars in extra taxes and royalties as the Palaszczuk Government seeks to tap the top end of town to deliver payroll tax relief to small- and medium-sized businesses, in the hope of boosting jobs particularly in regional Queensland.

An Australian medicinal cannabis company is working to address a global shortage of pharmaceutical-grade product, reducing cost and improving access at the same time.

They do apprenticeships, work with tools and are exposed to chemicals, so why aren't hairdressers paid as well as plumbers? The Australian Workers Union wants that to change.

A move by one regional council to permit outdoor funerals is backed by the funeral industry which says they could become commonplace as people move away from church-based ceremonies.

A former bank that was the birthplace of Mary Poppins creator P.L. Travers has been converted into a museum in Maryborough, Queensland, where it is hoped it will prove a drawcard for tourists.

Not long ago, Aboriginal people in Cherbourg were ruled by a government-appointed "protector". Now the elders are involved in running the courts.

Eden Camac, who has a complex disability, broke both hips and his left leg while at a supported accommodation facility. An ambulance was not called until 10 hours after the incident and his family wants to know what went wrong.

A baleen whale off California almost swallowed a sea lion that got in the way during an anchovy feeding frenzy, in an encounter rarely seen let alone caught on film.