Veronica Coen and Ruth Haggar make one final sift through the ruins of their Quaama homes before the first stage of the bushfire clean-up begins.

A NSW Health official breaks down in tears while apologising for the government department's failures in dealing with the Ruby Princess coronavirus outbreak, an inquiry hears.

A program preparing young Indigenous people for work in Dubbo is now operating a lime farm and selling the produce.

In the five months since her house was destroyed, Tod Adams has been at war with government agencies because the Fires Near Me app suggests her home was not affected.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the questioning of a NSW Health worker who broke down in tears at the Ruby Princess inquiry was "out of line" and she was only doing her best.

Jim Hamilton, 68, a passenger on Ruby Princess, says a stint in intensive care with COVID-19 has left him musing about "the meaning of life and everything".

Epidemiologist Kelly-Anne Ressler Ressler says her colleagues at NSW Health "were working very hard" and that if they could have their time over to deal with the Ruby Princess's arrival again "it would be very different" during evidence at the special commission of inquiry on May 6, 2020.

This is Cotillard as you've never seen her, haunted, broken by life, and in the hands of a great director in Jacques Audiard, a visual wild man who takes no emotional prisoners!

Exhibition builds on legacy of 1973 Aquarius Festival

The Tweed River Art Gallery features a swag of interesting exhibitions just now, and there's nothing like a gallery hiatus to encourage you to get along to them. The Gallery closes for the first half of October to allow major works on the Margaret Olley Art Centre, which will open as an extension of the gallery in early 2014.

Australia's largest agricultural field day may not exactly be a spending spree this year, but it does provide farmers with a reprieve from drought.

Three young sisters work together to fulfil their dream of owning and operating their own Hereford stud and, despite drought and study, they are making a success of it.

Tasmania records six new cases of coronavirus, with four of those infected being passengers who returned to the state after disembarking the Ruby Princess cruise ship.

As Tasmanian health authorities say they are yet to learn how two people in the state's north-west contracted coronavirus, four new cases are confirmed.

A ship that sank in 1852 off Rye in Victoria has given archaeologists new insights into early Australian boatbuilding.

Take a trip along a seriously nostalgic street, the route of the long forgotten Penguin Hillclimb.

Ian Pearce's resignation is the latest to plague a small east coast council, blaming his speedy exit on age, health concerns and union harassment.

Hotel Bruny owner Dave Gunton is helping to feed the island's residents during the coronavirus crisis, as many welcome a return to quieter times of growing vegetables and producing salt from seawater.

Having been a nun for 22 years, Mother Teresa Benedicta knows a thing or two about isolation. Here are her tips for living in solitude.

A student who stabbed a classmate at Renmark High School in South Australia's Riverland is found not guilty on the grounds of mental incompetence.

Two South Australian Government-run aged care facilities each have a year stripped off their accreditation periods after failing 21 of 44 operating requirements during an audit.

Utes assemble at the Deni Ute Muster in western NSW

A police car may have reached speeds of up to 154 kilometres per hour during a pursuit that ended in the death of Raymond Noel Thomas in Melbourne's inner north, a court hears.

It was bitterly cold at Anzac Cove on the 25th April. In order to attend the Dawn Service marking 100 years since the landing at Gallipoli, Jeff Peirce went 34 hours without sleep.

Tom Duddy's passion for collecting dates back to his days as a young boy hanging around shearing sheds. Now he has used that passion to turn the Prairie Hotel into a one of a kind outback museum.

While their families celebrated back home, Papua New Guinean students marked the 40th anniversary of their country's independence from Australia with a colourful performance at TAFE Queensland North in Townsville.

On a cattle property near the outback Queensland town of Barcaldine, Jocelyn Chandler has created a spectacular green oasis with her own bare hands. Her garden has undergone a dramatic transformation since she and her husband bought the property in 1979, when there was just one mango tree, one kurrajong tree, and a couple of shrubs near the house.

A wide range of foreign treats and traditional cuisines made their way into the mouths of festival goers in north Queensland over the weekend. The festivities were part of an annual Global Grooves event highlighting the diverse range of cultures in north Queensland.

Zombies walk the corridors as a chill fills the air. In Bundaberg that means the air conditioning is set to 'high' in the local shopping centre for the annual Zombie Walk.

While Australia continues to flatten the curve in this COVID-19 pandemic, there are serious concerns for the mental wellbeing of Australians.

France has accused Beijing of concealing facts, while Germany has suggested it could demand compensation.

Alison Whitehead ran up and down a local hill until she reached the equivalent elevation of Mount Everest's peak

Disgraced Cardinal George Pell will not seek a reduced sentence if the Court of Appeal upholds his conviction for sexually abusing two Melbourne choirboys in the 1990s.

A Ballarat magistrate dismisses an assault charge against a police sergeant, agreeing his use of force was "reasonable" during an altercation in which he punched his neighbour in the face.

A man has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing the death of a former regional Victorian mayor near Ballarat in 2017.

A Victorian man accused of murdering Adelaide mother-of-two Suzanne Poll at her workplace in 1993 will plead not guilty to the charge, a court has heard.

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.

Mining company South32 removes hundreds of workers from its two Illawarra underground coal mines as it investigates an issue with an emergency breathing mask.

A New South Wales man claims he has been "deceived" by the state's public trustee after his elderly mother's will was allegedly changed without his knowledge.

Energy Australia has apologised to a customer for issuing him multiple bills that 'did not make sense' despite his repeated complaints.