Helen Haines is set to make history by becoming the first independent to succeed another in Federal Parliament, replacing Cathy McGowan in the northern Victorian seat of Indi.

A program supporting the homeless with a mentor once they're housed is being hailed as a way to reduce the number of people sleeping rough.

A man who was shot by police in northern Victoria last week, after he and his brother allegedly threatened officers with a knife and a tomahawk, appears in court charged with assaulting police.

It is a familiar story, high commodity prices benefit some parts of the supply chain, but not others. That is the case in the sheep and lamb industry, where record prices are a boon for farmers, but a nightmare for processors and butchers.

Relatives are mourning the death of a 23-year-old Melbourne woman who died on Saturday when a microlight flown by her uncle crashed into the waters of Lake Eildon in central Victoria.

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

Australia's largest renewable biodiesel producer restarts operations at Barnawartha, in north-east Victoria, just three years after it was driven to closure.

Convicted murderer Michael Cardamone is appealing against the precedent-setting judgement that made him the first person in Victoria to be sentenced to life in prison with no parole after pleading guilty to a single murder.

Gilbert Parker is remembered by friends as a "fine man", after he went missing in seas off Fiji when his helicopter crashed as he attempted to take a mother and her two-year-old son to hospital.

La Trobe University wants to reach a zero emissions target within 10 years to try to be Victoria's first carbon-neutral tertiary facility.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison pays tribute to Tim Fischer at his state funeral, saying the former deputy prime minister's political courage in advocating for stricter gun laws had made Australia safer.

Authorities discover more than 120 dead native birds, believed to have been poisoned, on a rural property in northern Victoria.

Mick Keelty says a string of scandals involving water thefts and corruption have fostered public mistrust in the plan to save the Murray-Darling Basin.

Police believe human remains found in the Murray River at Albury belong to 21-year-old university student Bigul Pandit, who drowned while swimming with friends in January.

Operations will cease at Albury's Norske Skog paper mill, with 183 employees to lose their jobs after the company announced the sale of its Ettamogah site to Australian papermaker Visy.

Daisy the school dog is the latest staff member at Melrose Primary School, helping students with her calming influence and improving attendance rates.

Ahead of a fierce fire season, a cadet program for volunteer firefighting prompts school students to join their local Rural Fire Service brigade.

Victoria should brace itself for extreme weather over the next few days, with the bureau forecasting damaging winds, flooding rains and snow before conditions clear up for Melbourne Cup day.

The Victorian Government's historic treaty negotiations with the state's Aboriginal communities are one step closer this week, with the election of the First Peoples' Assembly. But the toughest yards to meaningful treaties still lie ahead.

The sister of missing hiker Niels Becker hopes he will be found with an "epic story" to tell after failing to return from five-day hike in cold conditions in Victoria's alpine region.

Water is running dry in the Top End but is funding for a dam the right way to fix it?

A judge finds "extraordinary" flaws in the environment watchdog's decision not to require a formal impact assessment on a bid to clear 20,000 hectares of native vegetation on a cattle station south of Darwin, but steers clear of arguments over climate change.

A tour guide, who says he has "never seen anything like this before", thought there had been a massive oil slick when he first saw the thick black water flowing out past a tourist hot spot in the Northern Territory.

Authorities were warned that a teenage boy with severe cognitive impairments was deteriorating in Darwin's Don Dale youth detention centre and needed help, before he joined in on a riot for which he may now go to adult jail.

A mayor, an electrician and a prison manager will try to help the Country Liberal Party claw back some seats in next year's NT election.

Paula Thornton journeyed through 20 countries in 14 months, and where some may consider relying on hand gestures rude or disrespectful of culture and language, for Ms Thornton this is her everyday.

School students are learning meditation and reporting their emotions with apps in a bid to prevent disruptive behaviour in the classroom.

It has been 31 years since Anne-Marie Culleton was raped and murdered while she slept in her Darwin home. Her sister Eileen is now urging South Australia's Parole Board to keep killer Jonathan Bakewell behind bars.

Authorities are warning WA residents to prepare emergency kits for up to five days and to avoid "last minute" preparations, despite below-average cyclone predictions for the 201920 season.

Michael Gunner says a nine-hour blackout which left thousands of residents across Central Australia without power during the heat of the day on Sunday is "unacceptable" and calls for a review into the region's power supply.

Territorians will not benefit from a government dominated by independent candidates, insists CLP hopeful Tracey Hayes as she starts her challenge against Chief Minister Michael Gunner.

A young teenage girl is forcibly stripped and kept naked in a police cell for almost an hour after being briefly forced into one of the spit-hoods banned in youth prisons ahead of the Northern Territory royal commission.

A man who raped and murdered a woman as she slept in her Darwin home will tomorrow be released from prison to live in Adelaide despite breaching his parole four times.

Almost five years after the Arnhem Land community of Galiwin'ku was battered by Cyclone Lam, the NT Government is yet to spend $20.3 million of disaster relief funding for rebuilding housing.