Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly says it is too far in the future to speculate on when life will get close to normal in Australia as the country looks to lift restrictions in stages.

As lockdown begins to ease the lesson is to take it gently and recognise we may have entered a new epoch of rolling pandemics, writes Virginia Trioli.

Theatres and art galleries around the country are on high alert after the NSW Government decision to withhold an annual grant from Australia's biggest multi-arts venue, Carriageworks, forcing it to appoint administrators.

Tasmania's spaghetti soup of road shoulders, painted green lanes, shared-use paths and recreational tracks frustrates cyclists on a daily basis, but with usage on the rise advocates are hoping change is on the way.

Queen Elizabeth has led tributes to veterans of World War Two, recalling the "never give up, never despair" message of Victory in Europe Day 75 years ago, as coronavirus dampened VE Day commemorations.

A 92-year-old resident of Newmarch House aged care home in western Sydney dies after contracting coronavirus, as NSW reaches a record high in testing rates.

Roy Horn, one half of the longtime Las Vegas illusionist duo Siegfried & Roy, has died at the age of 75 after suffering complications from coronavirus.

No new COVID-19 cases were recorded as the State Government announced a multi-million-dollar medical research fund to tackle the disease.

With any overseas adventures off the table for a while, Australians will be dreaming of escaping the shutdown and heading out for a holiday. Here's how every state and territory plans to get people travelling again.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian will announce the plan to start relaxing lock down restrictions from Friday, but local and regional travel is not yet back on the menu.

Katherine Comparti says "everything you could imagine" went through her mind when she became lost in thick jungle during a holiday to the remote island of Christmas Island off the West Australian coast.

It is a piece of Australian history never heard how a waitress, a TV repair man and a young Croatian migrant in a remote WA town helped the US win the space race by sending man to the Moon half a century ago.

While the cash economy is dwindling, small businesses still need somewhere to deposit their coins but where do you take them when your local bank branch closes?

Six Malaysian men visit Perth seeking $1.5 million they lost when an alleged Ponzi property scheme masterminded by WA businesswoman Veronica Macpherson collapsed three years ago.

Cancer patients in the remote Pilbara will soon be trialling chemotherapy via video link, saving them a 1,500-kilometre trip for life-saving treatment.

A woman is suing Newcrest Mining after she was attacked by dingoes and suffered "horrific" scarring and nightmares while at work at a remote WA mine site.

When the hype around 3D printing was at its peak, it was confidently predicted that every household would soon have a personal printer. That’s not the way it turned out. But 3D printing is coming back and it’s slowly making its way toward the verdant “plateau of productivity”.

Controlled Environmental Agriculture promises to be cleaner and greener. It’s focussed on technology and it’s essentially about bringing food production closer to the point of consumption. We examine the potential and the pitfalls.

In this episode, we look ahead to the news and broader media environment in 2020 and pressing issues for local content in a globalised world. We also hear about the need to “decomputerise” in order to decarbonise. 

Railton is full of topiary with hedges cleverly clipped into animals, words and objects but there are hopes it can reinvent itself and boost its economy like the north-east town of Derby on the back of newly-opened mountain bike tracks.

The number of older women experiencing homelessness has surged in recent years, with divorce, pay disparity and a lack of superannuation culminating in a "perfect storm" of gender disadvantage.

In a shock announcement, former minister Philip Dalidakis resigns from the Victorian Parliament, effective immediately, to take a senior position at Australia Post.

The Victorian branch of the CFMEU threatens to immediately cease all financial support for the ALP if Labor leader Anthony Albanese's push to expel union leader John Setka goes ahead.

Police charge two brothers, aged 18 and 20, over an unprovoked attack on an off-duty senior Victorian police officer near a Melbourne train station.

The AFL's supporter crackdown is being felt by those in the stands, but without confirmation one way or another from the AFL, the supporters are filling the void with questions of their own.

A proposed $2 billion Indigenous-led coal-fired power station in Collinsville in North Queensland developed by Brisbane-based Indigenous company Shine Energy and headed by traditional Biri man Ashley Dodd is set to revive one of the country's oldest coal towns.

Plans to carve up the Marrickville Golf Club in Sydney's inner west to create more green space spark "aggressive" debate, as the local council turns to residents to make a final decision.

It's the system they have in London and Chicago, it's being trialled in New York, and soon it will allow people in Cairns, Mackay and Townsville to pay for trains and buses with their credit cards and mobile phones.

"More mines, more jobs, more future," proclaims a mysterious billboard near Kingaroy. But not everyone agrees and the years of "constant fighting" are taking a massive toll.

Police announce a $500,000 reward for information about the rape of an 18-year-old woman in Melbourne's CBD last year, as the victim speaks about the "traumatic" attack for the first time.

Ex-detective Paul Dale tells a royal commission he has waited years to expose "corruption" within Victoria Police over the use of Nicola Gobbo as an informer, and that his sexual relationship with the woman known as Lawyer X has been exaggerated.

More than two decades since Philip Nitschke set fire to the "disgusting, pathetic" bill overturning voluntary euthanasia in the Northern Territory, the region remains in a stranglehold, banned from even debating the issue.

Queensland Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch's comments at an Indigenous festival reveal Labor is divided on the Adani mine's recent approval, the State Opposition says.

The Victorian Government prepares to reintroduce a bill which would make it easier for people to alter the sex recorded on their birth certificate to male, female or any other gender descriptor of their choice.

A life-saving surgery seen as a major breakthrough in stroke treatment is only available to Canberrans during business hours, but soon patients will not have to worry about whether the timing of their stroke will affect their care.

A new video shows Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch telling a room full of people she has shed tears over the approval of Adani's Carmichael coal mine, while also saying current environmental legislation is flawed.

A 27-year-old Canberra man is found guilty of running a major drug operation to fuel a flamboyant lifestyle complete with expensive cars and inspirational quotes played out on Facebook and Instagram.

Kelly says the way police handled the investigation into her alleged assault "has been the most devastating part of it" after she was told her rape kit was destroyed and then never existed at all.

Feisty little Mila is more her father's daughter than anyone might guess. The one-year-old's failing liver was entirely replaced with a section of her dad's, after Victoria's first father-child organ donation.

MORNING BRIEFING: Michael Ferguson says union bosses have hit a 'new low' and a court hears that a Launceston man accused of murder said his alleged victim "is going to pay".

A man who donated his sperm to a lesbian friend with the belief he could play a role in the child's life wins a High Court fight to be named the girl's legal father, blocking her mother from moving overseas.

At age seven, Lisa Millar was singing the ABC News theme and practising her interview technique on her little sister. After 25 years of reporting in Australia and overseas, she's now looking forward to the challenge of co-hosting a daily morning television program.

This 83-year-old ketch, Julie Burgess, is the last survivor of more than 100 built by the Burgess family and all were named after Burgess women.