Last Top Stories: Watch a crisis response exercise as it happens in Ballarat

Watch a crisis response exercise as it happens in Ballarat

In Ballarat on Saturday, firefighters from across the area will receive calls to reports of a chemical smell on a V/Line train which starts to affect hundreds of passengers on board. It's all part of a counterterrorism exercise organised by the CFA to ... >> view original

Qld man tasered after crime spree

A Queensland man has been shot with a stun gun during his arrest after an alleged crime spree north of Brisbane. The 36-year-old is accused of breaking into three cars in a Deception Bay car park on Friday morning before starting a fire in a nearby house on ... >> view original

Neville Bonner's great-niece Joanna Lindgren appointed Queensland senator ...

Joanna Lindgren, the great-niece of the first indigenous member of Australia's Parliament Neville Bonner, has been appointed by the Liberal National Party as its new Senator for Queensland. Following the marathon exhaustive voting process, which came ... >> view original

Navy wife and writer: a Globe-trotting career

I'VE been writing travel for more than 20 years. I'm slack. I should have started 40 years ago. I could have. I was in an almost unique position of being able to travel the world without cost, and with so much time I could have written endless articles, several ... >> view original

Pentagon clarifies statement on US bombers being sent to Australia

The Pentagon has clarified the suggestion by an assistant secretary of defence that the United States was planning to deploy B-1 long-range bombers in Australia. "ASD [Assistant Secretary of Defence] David Shear misspoke when he stated that B-1 bombers ... >> view original

Friends of alleged Queensland terror teen say he fell in with 'the wrong people'

Friends of a Queensland teenager, who is believed to have travelled to Syria, say he has been transformed and influenced by "the wrong people". The 18-year-old failed to return from a humanitarian trip to Indonesia. Federal counter-terrorism police ... >> view original

Teen killed with best friend in car smash just two hours after passing her driving ...

An 18-year-old girl died in a head-on collision with a lorry just two hours after she had received her driving licence. Tori Earl had just passed her driver's test on Thursday when she was involved in a horrific crash with her friend Kendall Lee Burke. Both girls ... >> view original

Syd man faces court after road rage attack

A man has faced court after a woman and her elderly mother were repeatedly punched during a road rage incident in Sydney earlier this month. Police say a 77-year-old woman was driving in Blacktown on May 4 when a man driving a 4WD attacked her and ... >> view original

Budget 2015: Abbott presses Vic Labor on road

Prime Minister Tony Abbott today tackled a running dispute over road funding between his federal Coalition government and the Victorian Labor government, challenging the state's government to find a new road use for $1.5 billion in federal money already ... >> view original

Man charged over fatal WA crash

WA police have charged the driver of a car that crashed near Collie overnight, killing one passenger and injuring two others. THE 21-year-old woman died after the car she was travelling in veered off Mungalup Road about five kilometres from Collie about ... >> view original