A group of wool makers launches a new trademark to recognise textile producers whose homegrown fibre is 100 per cent Australian from the farm right through to the finished product.

The trial of Lorraine Nicholson, who is charged with culpable driving causing the death of four women in their 60s and 70s, begins in Ballarat.

A jury hears of the moment the woman accused of causing a crash that killed four people in western Victoria realised the deceased were "probably grandmothers" as well.

774 Listener Reviewer Goran Stolevski looks at this year's Palme d'or winner

Rob Minshull produces Weekends with Warren and is an avid reader

Rob Minshull produces Weekends with Warren and is an avid reader. You can hear Dan Gardner being interviewed by Warren Boland on Sunday 13th Weekends with Warren.

Rob Minshull produces Weekends with Warren and is an avid reader.

Rob Minshull produces Weekends with Warren and is an avid reader

Author Mary Groves has lived the great outback dream and knows how tough it can be.

Rob Minshull produces Weekends with Warren and is an avid reader.

Rob Minshull produces Weekends with Warren and is an avid reader.

At sometime in our lives we grab a rod and head to the beach for a spot of fishing.

Rob Minshull produces Weekends with Warren and is an avid reader

Making the right choice in life is never straightforward but is one of the main reasons we find ourselves and each other so fascinating. Three Dollars is the story of Eddie Harnovey, a honest, compassionate man with a brilliant wife, Tanya, and a beautiful, if possibly epileptic, daughter Abbey. Eddie's life revolves around work and the three women in his life; the third is Amanda, a childhood sweetheart who re-appears in his life with mathematical precision every nine-and-a-half years. Eddie has a lovely house in the suburbs, he has a strong moral conscience, he's intelligent and witty, and the world around him is falling apart. On the brink of bankruptcy with just $3 to his name, has he made the wrong choices?Perhaps a large part of the answer lies in the speed with which we live our lives. It is easy to feel sympathy for Eddie as he bemoans the pace of change: "Everything happens too quickly to be understood while it is happening. Analysis is impossible until the event is over."A more likely cause of Eddie's predicament may lie in the fact that his wife is about to lose her teaching position at the university and Eddie, an engineer working for the Department of Environment, has been asked by his wife's former lover to falsify a report to allow a smelting plant to be built by Amanda's father.The depth of these relationships is explored with insight and great wit, unpicking those worries that come to us at night while, like Eddie, we lie and notice (and usually ignore) the cracks and flaking of paint on the bedroom ceiling. For Eddie, it is a time to rank debts and what has become the persistence and tyranny of the day-to-day struggle to financially survive.Three Dollars was written in 1998, but set in the times of Australia's introduction to what the surely misnamed 'economic rationalism'. The obsession with material goods and the soulless never-ending pursuit of profit are both a target for Eddie's scorn as well as a source of hilarious black comedy. Written with great humour and prose which at times may seem just a little too deliberate, Three Dollars is as pertinent today as it was in the 1990s.There are times, however, when the characters' tendency to editorialise or sermonise is a touch overwhelming, even if the sentiments seem sound or relevant to Australian politics today. Take this monologue from Eddie's wife, Tanya:"People's fear of change and their despair at the lack of certainty in any area of their lives, particularly where the social and the personal meet, that is with respect to their jobs and income, if it lasts long enough, will lead them to abandon reason, to be suspicious of it and to look for scapegoats and simplistic solutions. The wisdom or correctness of a government's decision will scarcely be discussed but instead attention will be focused on the strength with which the decision was made, the apparent certainty, the conviction with which it was implemented."Admittedly, Tanya is a university politics lecturer, but the moral hectoring in the novel can easily distract from the plot and soon become tiring.Ignoring the occasional sermon, however, Three Dollars an entertaining read, beautifully written and extremely funny. It sat on my bookshelf for over a decade and was rescued only because the mixed reviews for Perlman's latest novel, The Street Sweeper, made me curious. No ambiguity about Three Dollars though: compelling, dramatic and a disconcertingly humorous reflection of the way so many of us live our lives. In 2005, Three Dollars was made into an Australian movie, starring David Wenham. A superb interpretation of the novel, both film and book are highly recommended.

Marion von Adlerstein

Chloe Maxwell

John Clarke

G. Willow Wilson

Alison Wylie spent her childhood summers at archaeological excavation sites. Today, she's redefining the scientific field to include Indigenous perspectives.

This year's NAIDOC Week theme is Voice. Treaty. Truth. But the truth is that many Indigenous people feel voiceless when it comes to expressing where Australia stands on treaty today.

Disability advocates renew their push for local councils nationwide to ensure that new housing is universally accessible to address what they describe as a critical shortage of accommodation.

Volunteers for Meals on Wheels say the charity is under threat with branches surviving on bequests as Federal Government funding for the service plateaus.

Purebred or mixed-breed Staffordshire terriers have killed at least four people in Australia in the past six months but the RSPCA says a dog's breed alone is not a reliable predictor of aggressive behaviour.

Beekeepers in New South Wales are hand-feeding their hives as the drought cripples the bees' ability to make honey, with a shortage expected to sting consumers at the checkout.

A braille teacher says technology is causing a decline in literacy among people who are vision-impaired, prompting her to bring the tactile language into the mainstream.

MORNING BRIEFING: NSW police hunt for Sunjay Dayal, who escaped while undertaking maintenance work in Mount Kiera, while three cars set alight in a garage triggers the fire alarms inside a Liverpool unit block.

The rugby league player is slapped with an extra charge which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison as he is committed to stand trial in August over the alleged aggravated sexual assault of a 19-year-old woman in Wollongong.

The ARLC has suggested that Jack de Belin needs a "reality check" as it argues that the code's no fault stand-down policy is necessary because the sport has been "beset by a series of scandals."

St George Illawarra's season is all but over, but a sensational debut from young winger Jason Saab in the team's latest loss may be a sign of better things to come.

The NDIS cuts off at 65, so anyone who gets an acquired disability has to make do with an aged care supplement. This is not enough, according to a family caring for a quadriplegic.

Fine-dining chefs Tom Chiumento and Simon Evans usually serve seven-course degustations, but recently they've been using their talents to provide quality meals from food destined for the bin.

It is 30 years since Qantas's bold, record-holding 747 jumbo's continuous flight from London to Sydney in what was a marathon journey featuring specially-made fuel and covert planning.

Rugby league player Jack de Belin will stand trial on sexual assault charges in March next year, just two weeks before the start of the 2020 NRL season.

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

St George Illawarra player Jack de Belin has withdrawn his legal challenge to the NRL's no-fault stand down policy, with his lawyers telling a Federal Court in Sydney there was "no utility" in proceeding.

Australia has an extensive list of previously banned books that were once considered "obscene" and a threat to the country's morals and literary standards.

A court hears a former NSW Northern Beaches baseball coach allegedly kept torture tallies, diaries naming victims, footage of alleged assaults and was in possession of child pornography.

High-profile members of the surf lifesaving movement have described a continual wrestle for resources between spending on sport and spending on rescue equipment.