Sydney news

A new West Australian theatre company is aiming to put women centre stage as it tackles inequality in the arts.

Hobart City Council seizes on the federal election campaign as an opportunity to gain political support for a ferry service on the River Derwent.

Brisbane Lions deputy chairman Leigh Matthews says there should only be one AFL team in Queensland.

A severe weather warning is in place for elevated areas near Melbourne and Geelong, as well as South Gippsland, East Gippsland and the Victoria's west.

A private member's bill to legalise abortion for women up to nine months' pregnant in Queensland is under consideration by both Labor and the LNP.

Doctor Helen Caldicott, a pioneer of Australia's anti-nuclear movement, describes the final report into a proposed nuclear waste dump in South Australia as a "snow job".

Air bubbles trapped in ancient rocks in the Pilbara suggest the Earth's atmosphere was far thinner than previously thought, raising questions about how early Earth stayed warm enough for liquid water to flow 2.7 billion years ago.

Influential Indigenous rookie politician Patrick Dodson, who has just been promoted to the Labor frontbench, revives the political debate about constitutional recognition.

The head of the Victorian water authority Goulburn-Murray Water has resigned, effective immediately for unknown reasons.

Damaging wind gusts of up to 100 kilometres an hour are predicted across South Australia overnight after a day of wild weather.

The woman who was raped inside the Rebels motorcycle gang's North Hobart clubhouse considered the rapist a friend, the Hobart Supreme Court hears.

Up to 30 Fairfax journalists across Sydney and Melbourne lose their jobs, after the company fails to meet its targeted job cuts through voluntary redundancies, and decides to move to forced redundancies.

A security bond for rehabilitating the Frances Creek iron ore mine, 200 kilometres from Darwin, is "patently inadequate", the Supreme Court hears.

SA's State Emergency Service responds to more than 400 calls for help with flooding expected in many low-lying coastal areas.

Marcus Cornish, one of Tony Abbott's strongest backers in the outer western Sydney seat of Lindsay has openly criticised sitting Liberal candidate Fiona Scott for backing Malcolm Turnbull in last year's leadership ballot.

A Sydney convenience store owner set fire to a shop in 2014, killing three people, because he wanted to get out of a five-year lease on his failing business, a court hears.

The Northern Territory's Chief Minister says his government asks for money for infrastructure projects despite not needing it.

Taxpayer support for the troubled Whyalla steelworks could be finalised within weeks, Arrium's administrator says, following a steel industry taskforce meeting.

Wildlife officers are trying to keep a small whale alive which has been stranded at Logans Beach on Victoria's south-west coast.

The head of Western Australia's Quadriplegic Centre desperately hopes the state budget will deliver much-needed cash to upgrade the ageing and ailing facility in Shenton Park.

A Melbourne man found with copies of an Al Qaeda magazine was planning to make a bomb to start a bushfire, a court is told.

A senior police officer tells the Sydney siege inquest that decisions were made from a command centre where officers did not have access to live vision of the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place.

Dramatic vision emerges of a ute engulfed in flames, rolling down a suburban street in Canberra's south before hitting an apartment building on the weekend.

Former detective Roger Rogerson and his co-accused in the murder of student Jamie Gao shared a six-pack of beer after storing the victim's body in a garage, a Sydney court hears.

Sydney's drinking water could be contaminated by a major mine expansion in the NSW central west, a court is told.

The proportion of parents buying alcohol for their teenage children has fallen dramatically in recent years, Queensland researchers find.

Doctor Stephen Edwards pleads not guilty to murdering his 88-year-old mother in Hobart.

Just a week after the world is told researchers think they have located Captain James Cook's HMS Endeavour, a Queensland academic claims exploring the wreck will be of little value.

Staff who provide a listening ear are concerned about what will happen to their clients when one-off drought funding runs out.

Rubbish bins will not be collected across the city at the end of this week as garbage truck drivers go on strike.

One of Tony Abbott's strongest backers openly accuses "sex appeal" MP Fiona Scott of betraying the former PM, amid a backlash from Abbott loyalists who worked on her campaign in the seat of Lindsay.

A $200-million residential and retail development is approved for the Melbourne Convention Centre site as part of a billion-dollar plan to revamp the North Wharf, in Docklands.

Emergency services free a man who was trapped inside a truck for more than three hours, after it crashed into a building on Victoria's Surf Coast.

There are fears council staff and landholders on the New South Wales central tablelands have been exposed to potentially deadly asbestos during roadworks.

Take a look at the Queensland's new Opposition frontbench line-up.

A big wet has broken five years of drought south-west of Alice Springs.

A civil claim relating to a car accident involving a man who was later accused of murdering Karlie Pearce-Stevenson and her daughter is settled in an Adelaide court on undisclosed terms.

The State Opposition seizes on the cancellation of a Cabinet meeting as another sign the Barnett Government has run out of steam.

Driving up to Wally Peart's house, in the heart of central Queensland's Arcadia Valley, it is clear that his artistic talents are not limited by the materials he has at hand.

Aboriginal children receive much-needed ear, nose and throat treatments as part of a new program to address a gap in medical services on the mid north coast.

Ebola hero nurse raises awareness of workplace bullying in the WA healthcare sector.

At 70 years old, Australia's oldest female ironman competitor is heading back to the world championships in Hawaii.

A husband and wife who own motels in New South Wales and Victoria are accused of underpaying four Filipino workers about $261,300.

Australian markets for poppy crops shrink, as global stocks exceed demand.

Discarded Liberal MP Dennis Jensen is expected to announce he will contest the West Australian seat of Tangney as an independent candidate at the federal election.

A report from Queensland's Rural Debt and Drought Taskforce says a royal commission is needed to look into the lending practices of banks.

Strong winds are lashing South Australia, bringing down trees and causing a boat to break its moorings and disappear off Port Lincoln.

Emergency services attempt to free a trapped person after a truck hits a building on Victoria's Surf Coast.

John McRoberts faces a charge of perverting the course of justice in relation to a fraud investigation of a now-jailed travel agent.

Hutchinson Builders is cleared of charges relating to the death of pile driver Ben Wicks who was crushed by a steel beam when a webbing sling snapped at McRobie Gully Tip.