With sales rising and participation in regional Queensland gel ball leagues doubling in some areas, advocates are campaigning to ensure newcomers participate safely.

What began as a great adventure led to the worst day of Colin Caudell's life as he watched a truck run over his wife while she was working as a traffic controller.

As opportunities increase for women in contact sports, concerns about injury rates are also on the rise. But for some the health benefits outweigh the risk of injury.

These police know bull sharks and crocodiles are around, and "you can't even see your hand in front of your face", but the challenge is the reward in a job that requires grit.

Consumer groups are warning borrowers that two related short-term money-lending companies that have charged fees of up to almost 1,000 per cent of the initial loan, and are being investigated by ASIC, are now operating under a new name.

A Queensland coroner condemns the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for failing to share vessel monitoring data with police, in a string of safety recommendations over the death of six crewmen on the trawler Dianne.

Last-minute injunctions have stalled the deportation of a Tamil family who have spent years fighting to stay in Australia. Here's what we know about the case.

The lawyer for a Tamil family facing deportation from Australia says she is deeply concerned about access to her clients now they have been relocated to Christmas Island.

Considered a delicacy and aphrodisiac, the bladder of the Black Jewfish now fetches up to $900 a kilogram, prompting higher fines in Queensland for trafficking as well as catch limits, catching commercial fishers unaware and out of pocket.

Underwater statues and submerged hotels are some of the latest attractions on the Great Barrier Reef, concerning an old-school dive operator.

Scott Morrison steps in after former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce suggested the family facing deportation to Sri Lanka should be allowed to remain in the central Queensland town of Biloela.

Pro-refugee activism and the travel history of a Tamil father could see a Biloela family at the centre of an immigration row deported, an experienced immigration lawyer says.

Most of the time, acquiring an Australian passport using evidence like a birth certificate means citizenship for life. But sometimes the Department of Home Affairs can ask for more evidence, writes Jan Gothard.

We take a trip down memory lane with a 'now and then' look at pools and baths all around Australia, contributed by the ABC audience.

The Stroke Foundation says patients with brain clots and haemorrhages are being left for hours untreated in rural hospitals which do not have the equipment or expertise to support them.

Researchers at Australia's first 'body farm' have observed that dead bodies move significantly when they decompose and believe it could be important in investigations.

Fire-weary residents at Sarabah in Queensland's Scenic Rim get a reprieve as authorities downgrade the bushfire warning level in the area, but conditions are expected to worsen in southern Queensland on Saturday.

A 39-year-old man from Emerald and a 59-year-old man from the Mackay area are found dead inside a twin-hulled power boat thought to have crashed at high speed off Central Queensland.

The NSW Swifts claim the Super Netball title with a perfectly executed 64-47 victory over the Sunshine Coast Lightning in Brisbane.

The Queensland Government is expected to pass a bill today to introduce new mandatory farm run-off regulations to protect the reef, despite opposition from agricultural groups.

Drum lines used to kill sharks in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park will be removed after the Queensland Government lost a challenge in the Federal Court to continue its culling program in the protectedarea.

The rate of deliberately lit fires escalates rapidly during the school holiday period, according to an expert in arson investigations, as Queensland authorities reveal action has been taken against 21 juveniles and nine adults in recent weeks.

She might look like a normal Queensland teenager, but Skylah Hamill is an undefeated world champion in the growing sport of Muay Thai, or Thai boxing, and is about to defend her title in Turkey.

People living close to the beach admit to being a "little bit blas" about the threat of bushfires, but a forced evacuation during the recent Sunshine Coast emergency has changed their mindset.

Dog trackers, rangers, farmers and emergency services personnel band together in the search for Merlin, whose "best mate" and owner was killed in a car crash in rural Queensland last week. Searchers say the dog has been spotted a number of times in recent days.

Volunteer firefighters in central Queensland say the bureaucracy involved in fighting a bushfire has reached dangerous levels.

A company that provides frozen food to Meals on Wheels across four states, is recalling thousands of its products due to listeria contamination.

It has been more than a century since anyone was married in a cultural union ceremony on the land of the Port Curtis Coral Coast people, but now a Queensland couple hopes their action will revive the tradition.

More than a fortnight after running away into the bush when owner Simon Hannan was killed in a car crash, Merlin the kelpie cross turns up alive and well.

Several letterboxes on the Sunshine Coast have been filled with crude, cheaply made explosives and detonated, causing major damage and prompting a warning from police that residents are at risk of injury.

Farmers and local politicians voice their objections to plans to reduce the size of a proposed central Queensland weir as state and federal governments argue over how to deal with a cost blowout.

A wave of dangerous severe fire weather is about to hit southern Queensland with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting heatwave conditions as temperatures soar up to 40 degrees Celsius in parts of the state.