A 53-year-old man accused of lighting up to four bushfires in north Queensland will undergo a mental health assessment, after a dramatic arrest where he allegedly rammed a police car and officers fired shots at his vehicle.

Australian-owned investment group Mayfair 101 has bought Queensland's Dunk Island for $31.5 million.

Farmers in Western Australia's far north have carved a spot in the niche Halloween pumpkin market growing in popularity around the country.

An award-winning barramundi farmer says the product can be the equal of wild-catch with careful water management, smashing the stigma around freshwater fish.

One of the original mining towns in the famous Bowen Basin, Collinsville, marks 100 years of coal dominating the local economy.

Leaks from one of Adani's most significant contractors for its Carmichael coal mine, engineering firm GHD, show it has been rocked by internal dissent and management has been bombarded with complaints and questions about its work on the mine.

A Townsville boy, whose mother was murdered by his father, and who has been in court over 26 matters in just five months is denied bail after being linked to a crime spree involving recklessly driven stolen cars.

Pastoralists west of Alice Springs haven't seen this many camels on their station in years, and say their neighbours should be doing more to prevent a boom in the feral population.

Ucharonidge Station is the ninth cattle station Consolidated Pastoral Company has sold from its cattle portfolio.

Life on a mustering crew in northern Australia means travelling to remote stations to bring in cattle from thousands of kilometres of far-flung bushland.

An urgent parole audit ordered by the NT's Chief Minister in the wake of a shooting spree in Darwin earlier this month finds a number of parolees and offenders are not being adequately monitored.

Discoveries of rare animals are sparking mini tourism booms in remote Australia, but they're also causing some headaches for Aboriginal rangers and their conservation efforts.

Hundreds of children have been filing into youth centres every evening, as numbers double ahead of school holidays

The NT Government has been pushing for more agricultural development in the Red Centre, but farmers are now getting told there's not enough water.

Leanne Liddle has been shot at and seriously assaulted working as a police officer, but none of that compares to the "despair" she felt when consulting across the NT for the Aboriginal Justice Agreement, where whole communities had been "neglected for decades".

The future of one of outback Australia's tourist drawcards, the National Transport Hall of Fame, is in doubt after an independent audit found financial irregularities by management.

The National Truckies' Reunion will go ahead this August, despite the National Road Transport Society being placed under the control of a statutory manager.

The largest remote Aboriginal community in Central Australia is rapidly running out of drinking water but it is just one of many communities in the region that have been struggling with finite groundwater supplies for many years.

The nation's vast network of outback tracks may hold a special place in the hearts and minds of intrepid Australians, but many are shocked by the litter.

The land of the Alyawarr people in Central Australia has become the unlikely ground zero in the global fight against a crippling medical condition with wicked genetic links.

A 59-year-old employee of the company that operates the Bootu Creek mine was killed when a wall of soil and dirt collapsed on him on Saturday afternoon, the Singapore-based parent company says.

Australians suffering acute mental health episodes in rural and remote areas are increasingly having to travel far from family and friends for life-saving treatment, leading to calls for more specialist clinicians in the country.

The national anthem has been rewritten and performed for the first time in Alice Springs by a group that says it should be more inclusive of all Australians.

An inquest into the deaths of Linden Kunoth and Jordan Allen, who died by suicide, finds that neither man should have been granted leave from the Alice Springs mental health ward.

It will take up to four hours for critically injured patients from these remote communities to reach emergency medical treatment if the NT Government pushes ahead with plans to close clinics.

As people flock to Uluru in their thousands to make the ascent while they still can, tour operators are finding new ways for people to enjoy the area after the climb is closed for good next weekend.

A people-powered revolution is taking place in north-east Victoria with the region's first community-led energy network going live.

Josh Meredith lives with Down syndrome and is helping change community attitudes towards disability in the workplace.

A Murray-Darling Basin community leader says the former agriculture minister originally opposed water purchases as the Queensland Government suggests there was a better deal.

Police charge a woman with common assault after the Prime Minister is egged while meeting with delegates from the Country Women's Association in Albury, on the NSW-Victorian border.

Volunteer detection dogs have been trained to find the endangered alpine stonefly at Falls Creek, an insect measuring just 50 millimetres in length.

Two items salvaged from the ruins of the Glenrowan Inn, which burnt to the ground in a siege between the Kelly Gang and police almost 140 years ago, will be brought together again for an exhibition in north-east Victoria.

Former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer says the three-week early voting period is bad for democracy, particularly in regional Australia.

Concerns are raised about Charles Sturt University's spending priorities and credibility after a number of conditions were attached to the facility's registration.

Former water polo star Nick Dempsey will leave his Albury home to continue therapy at one of Australia's leading rehabilitation facilities on the Gold Coast.

Australia's largest timber building, the Mount Buffalo Chalet, will stay mothballed through another Australian winter without undergoing any development works.

An Irish family, at risk of being deported because of their son's cystic fibrosis, has been given renewed hope with the news that their case will be reviewed.

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

A Victorian family at risk of being deported back to their homeland Ireland after their son was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis will now be able to stay in Australia.

A New South Wales woman pleads guilty to common assault for throwing an egg at the Prime Minister's head during the election campaign.