Sydney news

An independent report finds Emergency Services Minister Tony Piccolo did not organise a photo opportunity during last January's Sampson Flat bushfire in South Australia at the expense of firefighting resources.

The Forest Stewardship Council responds to concerns about logging in WA's South West by telling worried groups they ought to contribute to the certification process.

Hunter Water has begun drilling at Morpeth, hoping to find what is thought to be a pre-historic underground river that could help provide fresh water during drought.

Train services returned to normal early this morning on the North Coast line, after a freight train derailment at Martins Creek yesterday.

Five Aboriginal men have been found guilty of poaching abalone from waters off Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, despite lawyers arguing they had native title rights.

Five men, including a Melbourne music promoter, are arrested following a joint FBI and New South Wales police investigation into money laundering and the importation of 300 kilograms of cocaine from Mexico to Australia.

A woman is taken to hospital in a serious condition after a stabbing in Bendigo, in central Victoria.

A public meeting will be held next week to update residents living around the Williamtown R-double-A-F base on a chemical contamination incident.

WA's Environment Minister says he is confident a move to expand the use of recycled construction and demolition material in roads and other civil engineering works will not face problems with asbestos.

A cotton grower in central Queensland whose property was damaged in the deluge which followed Tropical Cyclone Marcia is turning to grain to repair his paddocks.

The CSIRO will shut down its Ginninderra agricultural research station and relocate the facility to the southern tablelands of New South Wales.

Jarryd Hayne's inexperience may mean he is not used by San Francisco coach Jim Tomsula against Minnesota on Tuesday (AEST).

The Southern Ocean is absorbing more carbon dioxide emissions, but it could come at a cost to marine life, scientists warn.

The mother of a Newcastle man who took his own life is calling on council to be clear about the rules for placing memorial plaques in the city.

Doctors at the hospital treating Lance Franklin for an epileptic seizure reportedly advised Sydney not to play the AFL superstar forward against Gold Coast on Saturday night.

A team of plant biologists believes that common rice varieties, domesticated over thousands of years and now grown around the world, may have their ancestry in northern Australia.

A union is vowing to fight any potential job cuts at Endeavour Energy depots in the central west.

A high-profile federal MP says he doubts the New South Wales Government will support calls to relocate state departments to centres like Orange and Dubbo.

The mayor of Dubbo says he is going to spend his last year in the top job trying to take advantage of new economic opportunities coming to the city.

It has been ten years since kangaroo rescuer Chris Brolga Barns saved his first joey from the pouch of a dead kangaroo - a day Barns says transformed him forever.

The second day of a public hearing into the proposed Drayton South mine expansion will get under way in Denman this morning.

Work on the pipeline that delivers drinking water to 40 per cent of the Hunter region has led to around three-thousand Aboriginal artefacts being uncovered near Maitland.

A security guard at a Melbourne court is stood down over allegations he had a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl in the care of the state.

Financial counsellors say live online gambling makes "pokies look like a picnic" and call on the Government to rein in sports betting agencies who are using dubious practices to lure in and then bankrupt punters.

Power is restored to almost 30,000 homes and businesses following an outage in Sydney's north-west after an underground cable was struck.

The fossilised bones of 15 bodies from a previously unknown human species are unearthed from the depths of an underground graveyard, in a discovery scientists say could change the history of mankind.

Plastic fragments in the world's oceans are insidious killers, steadily claiming an increasing number of bird and marine life every year.

One of ABC Tasmania's longest-serving cameramen is remembered for his intelligence and love of his craft.

A woodchip mill near Burnie is officially reopened, five years after the financial woes of Tasmanian timber giant Gunns forced its closure.

An archaeological discovery unearthed from the depths of an underground graveyard in South Africa could change the history of mankind, a group of scientists say.

Hawthorn has included injured Isaac Smith while Richmond has summoned Reece Conca for just his third game of the year in week one of the AFL finals.

About 30,000 homes and businesses have their power interrupted in Sydney's north-west as a result of an underground cable being struck.

Former NRL star Nathan Blacklock speaks out about the sport's culture, where talking about your feelings made you look weak, and how it affected his own struggles with depression and suicide.

A Canberra man imprisoned for his role in drugging, robbing and detaining a man for 29 hours loses an appeal to have his sentence reduced.

Allegations of bullying made against a senior Melbourne neurosurgeon are upheld following a formal investigation by the Board of Neurosurgery, but the clinic where the surgeon worked retains its training accreditation.

The Save Beeliar Wetlands group has lodged an application in the Supreme Court for a judicial review of the WA Government's approval of Roe 8.

The mother of a New South Wales postal worker shot dead by police watched on as her son was gunned down outside his workplace, south of Newcastle, a union says.

A new art gallery showcasing the history of Tasmania's Aboriginal people prior to colonialism is to be established in Launceston.

The traditional owners of the Argyle diamond mine area have celebrated a 10-year partnership with mine owner and operator Rio Tinto.

A homeless man who made lewd remarks and gestures to a woman outside her workplace is issued an eight-month suspended sentence and an 18-month behaviour order by the ACT Magistrates Court.

V8 Supercar driver Marcos Ambrose says his results during the endurance season will not determine his future in the sport.

Two former principals of Geelong Grammar have told the child abuse Royal Commission they regret their handling of abuse complaints at the school during the 1980s.

The Abbott government recently announced Australia would accept 12,000 Syrian refugees. One Bunbury woman hopes her parents will be among them.

Police in Perth confiscate hundreds of kilograms of methamphetamine worth $320 million, as well as $1.2 million in cash, in what is described as WA's largest ever ice seizure.

Sydney is set to bear the brunt of job losses at Endeavour Energy as the power company announces 120 jobs are to be axed, with more redundancies expected later this year.

A section of one of Western Australia's busiest highways is reopened after a prescribed burn sparked a bushfire south of Perth.

Not too many people get to see what paramedics do considering their office is behind closed doors inside an ambulance. To help shed light on their role within the community, ambulance stations throughout Queensland have opened their doors to the general public for Ambulance Week from September 7-11.

Professor Roly Sussex sets the record straight on some common language myths.

Parents in remote Western Australia say forecast funding cuts to an education service for isolated children will further disadvantage their children.

The Canberra Institute of Technology has confirmed it mistakenly referred several students to debt collectors.