In March 1996, teenager Matthew De Gruchy bludgeoned his family to death in a "frenzied attack" in NSW. Twenty-three years later, he is set to be released from prison as a 41-year-old man.

Do you suffer from an indescribable feeling of vertigo, constant dizziness and motion sickness? Chances are you could have Mal de Debarquement Syndrome.

The Australian Tax Office reports a "small amount of fraudulent activity" related to its early superannuation access scheme, which was designed to provide financial relief to people left without income due to coronavirus.

Coronavirus has crippled the global tourism industry and in Thailand that means it includes elephants. As a result of the pandemic many elephants are heading back to their natural habitats.

MORNING BRIEFING: The proposed changes allow councils to apply the rate cap more flexibly and comes as local governments suffer financial hardship from the coronavirus pandemic.

After watching turtles overcome horrific injuries, five-year-old Queenslander, Owen Harris, is urging everyone not to litter and to do the "right thing" when fishing.

A southern Tasmanian man in his 60s is the latest to test positive for COVID-19 as the Premier prepares to release details on Friday afternoon of a slow easing of coronavirus restrictions.

Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania are the first states to announce the easing of coronavirus restrictions under the National Cabinet's plan to reopen Australia, but Victorians will have to wait until Monday to learn what rules will change for them. As it happened.

Tasmanian students can return to classrooms by the end of May under the Premier's plan to roll back coronavirus restrictions. Rules around national parks, funerals and aged care visits will ease from Monday, with two consecutive days without new cases.

With any overseas adventures off the table for a while, Australians will be dreaming of escaping the shutdown and heading out for a holiday. Here's how every state and territory plans to get people travelling again.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian will announce the plan to start relaxing lock down restrictions from Friday, but local and regional travel is not yet back on the menu.

MIT research scientist, Andrew McAfee, argues we need to rethink our assumptions about capitalism and the environment.   Economic growth, he says, has been gradually decoupling from resource consumption. So, if capitalism survives this current crisis, we may need to adapt our understanding of the way it all works.  We also hear from Annmaree O’Keeffe, from the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program, about the value of Australia’s international public broadcasting effort now that the Pacific is once again an Australian geopolitical focus.

The Health Department confirms a massive spike in the number of influenza cases in Western Australia this year, with 3,000 extra notifications and 14 deaths in the past week alone.

Police release CCTV footage of a car believed to be linked to a drive-by shooting at Melbourne's Love Machine nightclub in April, which left two people dead and four others injured.

An Australian designer has accused Port Adelaide of ripping off a design he posted online four years ago following the football club's release of its new logo.

A serial child sex offender is back behind bars just six weeks after being released, after he breached a supervision order by contacting a child over the internet.

A recently released rapist and murderer was among a "conga line" of people who offered to testify for the prosecution in another long-running murder case, a court hears.

A judge releases photos of evidence allegedly seized from the home of Peter Rex Dansie, who is accused of drowning his wife in an Adelaide pond in 2017.

An Adelaide lawyer who authored the South Australian Law Society's trust account handbook "abused" his knowledge to steal $850,000 from two deceased estates and fabricate documents to cover his tracks, a court has heard.

Workers say, while they welcome the 3% rise in the minimum wage, it is still not enough with rising costs.

The father of a missing Belgian backpacker, Theo Hayez, has called on encrypted messaging service WhatsApp to release the messages his son sent and received the night he went missing.

Premier Daniel Andrews says 100,000 Victorians will be tested for coronavirus over 14 days before a decision is taken on whether physical-distancing restrictions should be lifted.

Researchers in Victoria are experimenting with biosolids in a bid to improve farm productivity, and the results are very promising so far.

The lawyer for asthmatic prisoner Mark Rowson tells a court his client should be immediately released from Port Phillip Prison, if authorities cannot mitigate the risk of a coronavirus outbreak in the prison system.

Across many states and territories, the coronavirus restrictions keeping people at home are finally being relaxed. Here are the things allowed as the country slowly opens back up.

Residents against a controversial abattoir take their fight to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in a final attempt to stop the plan going ahead.

The Victorian Government launches a new campaign against family violence, as St Vincent's Hospital records a doubling of family violence victims presenting to its emergency department during the coronavirus pandemic.

Buggerlugs the lost Bulwer's petrel is released from Darwin NT after he was found at a Cronulla RSL balcony in NSW.

A rarely seen Bulwer's petrel, nicknamed Buggerlugs, which lost its way and ended up on a pub balcony in Sydney, is flown north and released back into its natural habitat.

A patient bringing a loaded gun into the Royal Adelaide Hospital and nurses being threatened with knives are just some of the concerning incidents plaguing staff at South Australian hospitals, the union for nurses says.

Dairy farmers say they are devastated a 10-cents-a-litre increase in the retail price of milk in July has not been passed on to them.

Allegations a female firefighter was grabbed by the neck by a male colleague, and another suffered burns after being "blocked" from leaving a house fire, spark an investigation at a regional SA fire station but the findings will not be made public.

Danielle Easey's relatives share tributes on social media after her body was found wrapped in plastic and dumped in a creek in the NSW Hunter Region, as police search for clues about when and why she was killed.

The Independent Planning Commission will be reviewed after a 21-year mining lease near Singleton was approved before public submissions closed a blunder the Opposition says will call the system's integrity into question.

Port Macquarie resident Kim Dahler was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in her 40s and wants others to know life can still be fulfilling.

Following the recent Hendra virus outbreak, an equine vet is encouraging horse owners to vaccinate their animals against the deadly bat-borne disease.

Five new photos of William Tyrrell are made public by the NSW Coroner as well as the transcript of a key witness who said he cursed a woman he saw driving with an unrestrained child in the backseat.

The 6.6 magnitude earthquake that rattled Broome was 100 times more powerful than the one which claimed 13 lives in Newcastle in 1989 but there were no deaths and very little damage.

A day after Jody Gore was released from her murder sentence in an act of mercy by the WA Government, she says she hopes her case brings the "silent epidemic" of domestic violence into the open.

South Australia's recent "old mate" tourism campaign may have ended in tears both literally and figuratively but Tasmania is hoping to cash in on that controversy by releasing its own rival ad.

Reports from people convinced they have seen Tasmanian tigers in the wild are released, with observers describing encounters with "cat-like creatures" they were "100 per cent certain" were thylacines.

DAILY BRIEFING: A Tasmanian architect releases concept plans for an AFL stadium at Mac Point, and Hobart's Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds survives a no-confidence vote during a heated meeting.

DAILY BRIEFING: Firefighters downgrade the alerts for four bushfires which are burning out of control north of Hobart and in a shack area of the Central Highlands.

Australian woolgrowers are set to benefit from the suspension of wool exports from South Africa to China due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

A company proposing to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight releases its environment plan, but Greenpeace says it is downplaying the risk of a major spill.

The South Australian Government announces increases to a raft of fees, fines and charges ahead of next month's state budget.

Increased taxes on properties are making South Australia even less attractive to investors according to the Property Council of Australia, amid worries surrounding the local housing industry.

The vulnerable species breeds year-round in captivity and arid zones but a study of re-introduced populations on the Eyre Peninsula suggests that may not be the case in southern parts of Australia.

Aboriginal children will be excluded from a plan to boost adoptions of children in state care in South Australia because of cultural sensitivities around the Stolen Generation, the State Government says.