Stagnant domestic production and a slump in global raw sugar prices require serious action to combat future declines in the $2 billion sugar industry, a report finds.

Florists say deceptive advertising is tricking customers into thinking they're buying local flowers when they're not. One businesswoman says the practice has cost her as much as $80,000.

The Queensland Government plans to crackdown on the illegal dumping of commercial fishing nets, known as ghost nets.

MP Warren Entsch says the Queensland Government failed to honour a deal to help fund a Cairns Indigenous boarding facility for girls following the state election.

A Cairns apprentice's charges are upgraded to unlawful striking causing death after a man he allegedly hit during a fight outside a bar on the weekend dies in hospital.

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

A leg wound that became infected after a fall eventually claimed the life of Bertha Aalberts, but her Melbourne nursing home had no record of the injury's severity, a Cairns hearing of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety is told.

Celebrity chef Maggie Beer says nothing can forgive the abysmal standard of meals given to some aged care residents as the royal commission into the sector hears people were served meals from trolleys near maggot-infested rubbish bins.

Letters of solidarity and more than 400 Aboriginal 'passports' will be delivered to Manus Island refugees as a group of boats set sail for Papua New Guinea.

The team at Neville's Garden Site: Phil Creaser, Karen Roberts, Liz Price, Sue Hand, Kenny Travouillon, Dr Mike Archer, Arthur White, and John Scan

A large fossil of Riversleigh snake vertebrae that are 19 million years old

Police have released new images of a fugitive's tools in a fresh appeal for information to find one of the country's most wanted, on the run for nine years.

Queensland's Native Mounted Police massacred thousands of Indigenous people on the colonial frontier, and most of its troopers were Indigenous themselves. It's a difficult legacy for their descendants to come to terms with.

Running outside and swimming in the ocean is a rare luxury for eight students who lived through the terror of the tsunami that hit the Fukushima nuclear plant in 2011.

They travelled across the world in the 1950s and '60s to build a new life cutting cane in the steamy paddocks of north Queensland. Now Basques return to learn the story of their ancestors.

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.

Australian icon Les Hiddins is back and instead of publishing another book, the Bush Tucker Man has gone digital, with a searchable website and a social media account.

Lego is being used in both informal and clinical sessions to improve the communication and cooperation skills of children with autism.

The survival of a tourist allegedly stabbed in broad daylight at a busy backpacker hostel in Far North Queensland is a "pure fluke" after major arteries in her neck were missed by "mere millimetres", police say.

A luxury superyacht has crashed while attempting to moor at a Cairns marina, narrowly avoiding a potential disaster on the busy tourist strip.

After staging an against-the-odds survival after a boat capsize in remote far north Queensland waters, one man is issuing a stern warning to fellow fishermen.

An ominous drone photo of sharks circling a whale beached near Albany in WA snaps top prize at this year's Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year awards, with the photographer saying the scene was "unreal".

TV personality Ernie Dingo is travelling around Australia to improve Indigenous men's health by taking them camping in the bush.

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.

Cardwell residents band together to save a large tree that arborists have declared unsafe due to beach erosion during the recent heavy wet season.

Three people killed in a "freak" skydiving accident in Far North Queensland died in mid-air when a solo sports jumper's parachute opened prematurely and caused them to collide, a coroner finds.

Grant 'Scooter' Patterson may be half as tall as most people but he does not do things by halves. He works hard, plays hard and pushes himself in the pool, chasing his dream of winning a Paralympic medal.

The manager of Australia's best-known locally produced tea brand says there is a real shift in the climate on its plantations in Queensland's far north.

What's driving Australian families overseas to gamble on "magical" stem cell treatments at sky-high prices?

A Far North Queensland tourist island, left lying in ruins for years, will undergo a multi-million-dollar redevelopment in an effort to create an international tourism drawcard.

Two teenagers who have recently sought help to stop chroming are speaking out about their addictions, which have led to the loss of friends and family members, in the hope of deterring others from heading down the same path.

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.

Environmental groups say plans to save marine animals from harm and drowning in discarded fishing nets are not being implemented where it is needed the most.

Health professionals who say they have seen an increase in the number of "very young children" under the influence of solvents and inhalants warn the consequences of their actions are irreversible.

As Queensland Opposition leader Deb Frecklington weighs in on the state's chroming crisis, BP recalls how it went about combatting misuse of its own product almost two decades ago.

It's estimated that African swine fever has killed 25 per cent of the world's pig population. The deadly disease has now reached Timor-Leste, about 650 kilometres from Darwin.

Queensland's youngest gorge has been bridged entirely with glass, providing tourists with 360-degree views of an ancient oasis.

A report by Human Rights Watch says new regulations to tighten the use of chemical restraints on dementia patients has actually normalised the treatment to the detriment of patients.

A research trip to far north Queensland was supposed to find dozens of Australia's endangered sawfish but they didn't find a single one.

A year after her murder, Toyah Cordingley's name still hangs in shop windows, on posters strung up on trees, and stickers on car bumpers in nearly every street in Cairns.

The family of the man who died while zip-lining in Far North Queensland has described him as a "loving husband, father, son, brother and friend to all".

Driven out of society by the cost of living and life-changing events, a growing number of people are going bush on the NSW coast but their presence is drawing the ire of traditional owners and authorities.

An estimated 75,000 backpackers working, or that have worked in Australia, could be back-paid hundreds of millions of dollars after the Federal Court ruled the so-called backpacker tax invalid.