Some families are already taking advantage of "demand response", reducing their bills by cutting their electricity use at peak times. But a move to promote competition in the demand response market has come up against some serious opposition.

The trauma of premature birth has additional complications for parents who live hundreds of kilometres from their baby's neonatal hospital.

A South Australian citrus grower is lathering his crops in molasses in an attempt to protect the produce from damaging frosts.

A prisoner who escaped from a low security prison farm in South Australia has been found "without incident", police say.

A teenager who suffered a punctured lung when she was stabbed by a classmate at Renmark High School tells the District Court they are still best friends and she will continue to support her as she receives treatment for schizophrenia.

Whisky the kelpie and Diamond the sheep are making a splash at Karoonda in South Australia's Mallee region, after being painted on the town's silos.

The last few players at this small town's croquet club are forced to close the door after 91 years but the sport isn't finished just yet.

Ryan Chambers disappeared 13 years ago. Today his face, frozen in time, adorns the side of a shop in South Australia's Riverland, imploring people not to forget the young man who hasn't been seen or heard from since.

Amber Brea Rover was suffering from undiagnosed schizophrenia when she stabbed her friend Zoe Fenn in July last year.

Fire crews prevent a gas explosion and save neighbouring homes from a blaze that killed an 82-year-old man and his dog at Mount Burr in South Australia's South East.

Two families say their loved ones suffered neglect at a state-run nursing home in South Australia's Riverland, which has held on to accreditation despite failing 21 out of 44 expected outcomes.

An agricultural research collective in South Australia's Mallee says its launch of interactive field day videos will not take away from the real thing.

A Riverland family farm diversifies its cropping operation to take on crickets.

A three-car crash on one of Adelaide's busiest roads leaves a driver in hospital with critical head injuries, with the manager of a nearby business likening the scene to the aftermath of a tornado.

Australia's emu farmers are trying to ramp up production as the demand for oil increases.

Police investigate the cause of a bushfire that came dangerously close to a Loxton aged care facility in South Australia's Riverland, prompting an evacuation overnight.

The Royal is the most commonly used name for hotels in Australia, but the story behind the popularity of this pub name is a curious mix of colonial communications and aspirational marketing.

The modern motoring experience is one of self-parking vehicles, multi-storey car parking complexes and stacking systems, but in many Australian country towns, reverse angle parking remains.

The lure of the outback beckons for young people with a taste for adventure and unique career opportunities.

When taxidermist Cassandra Hall was first asked by a New South Wales wildlife park to skin and stuff a 1.7-tonne American bison, she thought they were joking.

Sixty years ago it would have been difficult to find a home in Australia without a millet broom. Now, as an industry dies around them, two men are refusing to be brushed aside by the passage of time.

A CSIRO reconstruction of the Federation drought of 1891 to 1903 finds that if it were to occur again today, its effects would likely be even more devastating.

Laura Sullivan spent 32 years in an Australian group she now believes is a cult, because of its controlling nature. But she didn't choose that path she was born into it.

A Gold Coast electrician fishing on the Murray River on the NSW-Victorian border was startled to find that what he thought was a log, or a dead Murray cod, was in fact a partly-skinned freshwater crocodile, thousands of kilometres from its natural northern Australian habitat.

MORNING BRIEFING: Police release CCTV footage showing a man and a woman they wish to speak to over the vandalism of the Dog on the Tuckerbox statue, while Opal card travel discounts are extended.

A coroner finds clear and ongoing inadequacies in the care of a pregnant Indigenous woman, who later died from sepsis, by doctors and staff at Tumut Hospital.

As a 28-year-old man is charged, the iconic Dog on the Tuckerbox at Gundagai could soon be under 24-hour watch after a national outcry when it was vandalised on the weekend.

The family and friends of Naomi Williams, who died, along with her unborn son, after 20 attempts to get help, say the apology they have received via a statement from the health district is not good enough.

Sitting proudly on its pedestal, Gundagai's much-loved pooch is back where it belongs after it was recently vandalised in an attack that left the community outraged.

The NSW Government has announced a $10 million initiative to combat what the Agriculture Minister has described as a looming "fish Armageddon".

An irrigation channel used to release water into a forest along the Murray River in NSW is filled with earth and rocks, with an irrigator saying it's a sign of frustration boiling over in the area.

Controversial environmental water flows are thought to be the driving force behind the revival of the native southern bell frog, despite the drought.

A woman is in a serious condition with head injuries, while NSW Ambulance is treating dozens of other patients after a bus crashes near Harden, 125 kilometres north west of Canberra.