Free sheds are being built for those with nothing, in a creative approach to disaster recovery that is changing lives and putting a smile back on faces of despair.

Gambling giant Federal Group is demanding Tasmanian pub owners continue paying rent on leased poker machines, even while hoteliers have been forced to close due to coronavirus — a move blasted by Senator Jacqui Lambie as "trying to make a quid" during a "wartime scenario".

Renters in Tasmania could be safe from eviction until at least September under emergency laws to shield them during the coronavirus crisis — with New South Wales tenancy advocates welcoming the development and calling on "all governments" to follow suit.

Tasmanian producer's market collapses from 6,000 carcasses a week at the start of this month to nothing.

Tasmania's economy was just picking up as coronavirus restrictions sent thousands of people out of work — but some help is out there.

As Tasmanian health authorities say they are yet to learn how two people in the state's north-west contracted coronavirus, four new cases are confirmed.

The Australian Government will launch hundreds of flights to deliver fresh produce to key international markets as part of a big-spending boost for exports.

State borders are closed, but has the time come to cordon off the shires from visitors too? Some rural and country leaders think so.

For the first time in about a fortnight Tasmania has had no new positive coronavirus tests, but the Premier says that's no reason to relax while warning parents to supervise children not at school.

Researchers in Adelaide are working on turning mushroom waste into items like sunscreen, skincare products and coating for outdoor furniture.

If there is anything good to come out of the coronavirus pandemic, it could be that rural Australians end up better connected to essential and recreational services than ever before.

It's been another tough week for the embattled industry, with a key indicator falling sharply and consumers expected to swap business suits for athleisure wear amid the coronavirus crisis.

A ship that sank in 1852 off Rye in Victoria has given archaeologists new insights into early Australian boatbuilding.

Artist Megan Walch was just two weeks into a months-long arts residency in the heart of Paris when coronavirus took hold of France. Armed with her camera, she documented her experiences. Now back home in Tasmania, she's just one of the artists adapting her work for an unusual age.

Residents are finding ways to cope as a full lockdown looms over the region, with one woman banging pots and pans in support of essential workers, while another considers whether to shut up shop.

In the years after World War II Tasmanians took to the country to buy up vacant land and built makeshift dwellings on their own patches of paradise. Shacks now dot the Tasmanian coastline, but they're not as shabby as their names suggest.

Where to start with an old glasshouse, littered with plastic, that was used for a hydroponic tomato farm for several decades?

A clampdown on foreign investment into Australia could cut-off vital funding for cash-strapped farmers and businesses during the COVID-19 crisis, industry figures say.

An animal cruelty case against Tasmanian shipping identity Les Dick, who has cancer, is adjourned after he agrees not to be involved in livestock transport for five years.

The Prime Minister says north-west Tasmania is a classic example of the need for the Federal Government's coronavirus-tracking app, after he accuses a north-west aged care worker of not telling the truth about their movements and contacts.

A juvenile white-bellied sea eagle is back in the skies near Tasmania's Bruny Island after surviving being coated in fish oil and a enjoying a bubble bath spruce up.

Hiking huts are Australia's answer to Scotland's famed bothies and New Zealand's backcountry shacks and stand as a testament of a national identity that has long been intertwined with survival in isolation.

A Tasmanian police officer is charged over a car crash that killed a pedestrian from New South Wales earlier this year.

Emergency workers across Australia who use government-subsidised nannies are scrambling to find child care options after their In Home Care was cancelled as a side effect of the Federal Government's new policy to make child care free.

Aussie expat Morgan Ray usually attends an Anzac Day ceremony on the banks of the Chicago River, but lockdowns have made that impossible this year. He's not alone in feeling alone this year.

One Tasmanian Aboriginal elder says the mountain's summit is where her spirit will go when she dies. She wants people to only visit the sacred pinnacle "for good reason".

Tasmanian police dismiss allegations, first aired publicly by Australia's Chief Medical Officer, that an "illegal dinner party" of healthcare workers contributed to Tasmania's coronavirus outbreak.

A man suffers head injuries when he is hit by a car that mounted a tram stop outside the Royal Adelaide Hospital, narrowly avoiding other bystanders.

Country kids often hear they need to move to the city after school, but these young entrepreneurs are staying local and marketing their home town to the world.

You never forget your first car and it seems some of us wish we never let it go, including this 92-year-old who bought back his first Chevrolet and restored it.

A teenager who suffered a punctured lung when she was stabbed by a classmate at Renmark High School tells the District Court they are still best friends and she will continue to support her as she receives treatment for schizophrenia.

Whisky the kelpie and Diamond the sheep are making a splash at Karoonda in South Australia's Mallee region, after being painted on the town's silos.

Police say poor decisions, not weather conditions, were to blame for a head-on crash between two trucks yesterday, but transport authorities argue it is premature to blame the drivers, given how difficult it can be to pull over to the side of the road.

Fishing businesses report an increasing demand for carp as a "premium" food product, but fear the looming herpes virus release could kill the industry before it even takes off.

A three-car crash on one of Adelaide's busiest roads leaves a driver in hospital with critical head injuries, with the manager of a nearby business likening the scene to the aftermath of a tornado.

Australia's emu farmers are trying to ramp up production as the demand for oil increases.

Police investigate the cause of a bushfire that came dangerously close to a Loxton aged care facility in South Australia's Riverland, prompting an evacuation overnight.

When taxidermist Cassandra Hall was first asked by a New South Wales wildlife park to skin and stuff a 1.7-tonne American bison, she thought they were joking.

A CSIRO reconstruction of the Federation drought of 1891 to 1903 finds that if it were to occur again today, its effects would likely be even more devastating.

The famous Dog on the Tuckerbox statue near Gundagai in the NSW Riverina has been knocked from its sandstone pedestal in an attack the local mayor has called a "senseless bit of vandalism".

The NSW Government has announced a $10 million initiative to combat what the Agriculture Minister has described as a looming "fish Armageddon".

A woman is in a serious condition with head injuries, while NSW Ambulance is treating dozens of other patients after a bus crashes near Harden, 125 kilometres north west of Canberra.

Basin communities share experiences of life under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, in what they say is the 37th review into the water management scheme.

Rampant vandalism, stress on social housing, and a dairy farming family at the end of their resources SBS's Struggle Street spotlights the Riverina in its latest look at poverty.

Firefighters are battling to stop a large bushfire from destroying the tinder-dry Ramsar-protected Macquarie Marshes in western New South Wales.