A random survey of people living in the Murray-Darling Basin shows support for reallocating water from irrigators to Indigenous communities.

Taxpayer investments and the water market are making irrigation more efficient and reducing Murray-Darling's base flow. Here's what needs to happen next, write Q J Wang and Avril Horne.

As Australia's competition watchdog prepares to study the Murray-Darling Basin's $2 billion water trade, a trip up the river finds irrigators are worried about the market's "unintended" consequences.

High water prices in the Murray-Darling Basin are blamed on foreign investors and corporate speculators. The simple truth is they are caused mostly by lack of rain.

A Murray-Darling Basin inspector-general will focus of water efficiency, compliance and theft under a proposal by Water Minister David Littleproud.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will investigate who actually owns Australia's water, in particular the Murray-Darling Basin's $2 billion water market.

New analysis of water prices in the southern Murray-Darling Basin finds water prices sitting at levels only previously seen during the Millennium Drought.

As farming groups lobby the Federal Government to take action on soaring water prices, water brokers warn some irrigators will be worse off if the Government intervenes in the trade.

Australia's largest cotton farm Cubbie Station has opened its gates to local government councillors from across the Murray-Darling Basin.

Water is running dry in the Top End but is funding for a dam the right way to fix it?

The incident left more than 60 residents without running water for five days as temperatures soared into the mid-30s.

Residents have been left vulnerable and fearing for their future water security as underground aquifers run critically low in rural Darwin and communities fear what a second poor wet season could mean for their future.

Professor Thomas Madsen with a dead water python

With 11 voyages and 300,000 recorded observations under his belt, population ecologist Eric Woehler has dedicated his life to building a dataset to help monitor and track bird populations in a changing world.

Angry protesters have called for the sacking of the Federal Water Minister and hurled an effigy of him sitting on a toilet into the Murray River.

While the competition watchdog investigates Australia's water market, those pushing for a central exchange for water trading say it could solve many problems.

ACT water police spent Wednesday morning trying to tie up an unwilling Canberran that had found itself in Lake Burley Griffin. According to a witness, the roo was eventually rescued and hopped off towards the High Court.

This startled eastern grey kangaroo was a bit miffed when two police officers on a jetski tried to haul it back on to the shore of Lake Burley Griffin.

South Australia's capital records the highest methamphetamine use of all the cities in the world compared in a paper based on wastewater samples, but a researcher says initiatives to tackle this problem have had an effect.

Sussan Ley says she believes only people who have a "connection to farming" should be allowed to own water in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Australian scientists have weighed Greenland's ice cap melt using satellite technology and their findings are not good.

Murray River water destined for Adelaide will be reallocated to farmers upstream so they can grow feed for their livestock, as part of a federal drought stimulus package announced today.

An island of floating rock known as a pumice raft is gradually heading for Australian shores across the Coral Sea and is so expansive it can be tracked via satellite.

Passengers on a regional Queensland flight describe the moment one of the propellers on a twin-engine plane stopped in mid-air.

The woman, 32, and man, 24, were reported missing in the Cairns area yesterday after they both failed to show up for work.

As another large vessel sinks below the waterline on the Gold Coast, the Queensland Transport Minister says derelict boats are becoming a real problem and taxpayers are being forced to cover the cost.

One of the region's major dams is already at half capacity and with another dry spring forecast, Seqwater warns mandatory water restrictions could be in place by mid next year.

Free fuel, meals, and animal feed are among the supplies donated to volunteer firefighters and people affected by bushfires, as the emergency continues to unfold in southern Queensland.

A man and woman have been charged after the Burleigh Waters branch of Suncorp Bank was robbed by two people cloaked in leather jackets and helmets who allegedly pulled out guns to threaten the tellers.

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.

Bystanders have thrown objects at a police car that appears to be attending the scene where cars at Arundel were doing burnouts.

After increasing pressure on the Queensland Government, all children held in the maximum security police watch house in Brisbane have now been removed and placed into youth detention centres.

As Stanthorpe faces running dry within months the local council discusses its options with the Queensland Government and gets set to impose heavy water restrictions.

These police know bull sharks and crocodiles are around, and "you can't even see your hand in front of your face", but the challenge is the reward in a job that requires grit.

Underwater statues and submerged hotels are some of the latest attractions on the Great Barrier Reef, concerning an old-school dive operator.

Fire-weary residents at Sarabah in Queensland's Scenic Rim get a reprieve as authorities downgrade the bushfire warning level in the area, but conditions are expected to worsen in southern Queensland on Saturday.

Farmers and local politicians voice their objections to plans to reduce the size of a proposed central Queensland weir as state and federal governments argue over how to deal with a cost blowout.

A highly contentious underground coal mine on the New South Wales Central Coast has been given the go-ahead, despite an election "guarantee" against coal mining in the region.

Legendary Australian boxer Troy Waters, a former junior middleweight world title boxing contender, dies at the age of 53 following a long battle with leukaemia.

Central coast residents have launched a scathing attack on the NSW Government after recent works let tonnes of silt, clay and rocks wash into Bangalow Creek, renowned for its wildlife.

MORNING BRIEFING: Police charge a man in Parramatta after finding tools to make a homemade bomb in his backpack, while Sydney residents can soon expect formal water restrictions as dry conditions continue.