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Growers in southern Queensland the latest to express concern as incentive programs attract only 500 applicants for thousands of seasonal jobs.

JobKeeper, paying a A$750 weekly subsidy to employers to keep workers on the payroll, and JobSeeker, which doubled unemployment benefits relative to the Newstart allowance, frozen in real terms for nearly 30 years.

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Global consultancy’s latest report says Australia has “got this”, while most economies continue to struggle with Covid’s impact.

The dissident politician was jailed for 30 days by a Moscow court within 24 hours of stepping off the flight, on the grounds that he had violated the terms of his suspended sentence for embezzlement issued in 2017, a conviction he has always dismissed as being trumped up in order...

The business community, which has been alarmed by a deterioration in the China relationship, will watch Tehan carefully as he outlines his ideas for engagement.

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The giant radio galaxies were spotted in new radio maps of the sky created by one of the most advanced surveys of distant galaxies. The team working on it has included astronomers from around the world including South Africa, the UK, Italy and Australia.

Keynesian economics – named after its founder, 20th century economist John Maynard Keynes – holds that when private spending is too weak to keep people in jobs the government should ramp up its own spending to fill the gap.

The Round House in the port city of Fremantle was the first permanent public building to be constructed in the then Swan River Colony.

Almost 2.5 million families in the UK live in poor housing conditions and suffer from fuel poverty. This means they are unable to maintain a reasonable temperature in their homes due to low income.

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Methamphetamine with a street value of $187-million was hidden in various consignments of goods, including kitchen bench tops and chandeliers.

Health workers are at higher risk of COVID infection and illness. They can also act as extremely efficient transmitters of viruses to others in medical and aged care facilities.

The new variant has been estimated to be 50% more easily transmitted than common variants, though it appears to affect people’s health in the same way. The increased transmissibility is believed to arise from a change in the virus’s spike protein that can allow the virus to more easily enter...

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Earlier this month, somewhat overshadowed by the events in Washington, the Democrats took control of the US Senate. The Democrats now hold a small majority in both the House and the Senate until 2022, giving President-elect Joe Biden a better chance of getting climate actions through Congress.

Heatwaves, floods, bushfires: disaster season is upon us again. We can’t prevent hazards or climate change-related extreme weather events but we can prepare for them — not just as individuals but as a community.

Decision comes after Emirates cancelled its inbound flights because of government changes to the arrival caps on returning Aussies.

The most ironic threat is from unsustainable tourism. These islands attract millions of visitors a year keen to experience their natural wonders. Yet often this very “ecotourism” is contributing to their degradation.

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Two sniffer dogs can now turn a six-week disease-detection process into a matter of seconds as they fight to eradicate the kauri dieback fungus.

Law enforcement in states will need to mobilize and share information, expertise and resources to protect lives and property during the inauguration, and perhaps even after.

The Earth’s mean surface temperature in 2020 was 1.25°C above the global average between 1850 and 1900 – one data point maybe, but part of an unrelenting, upward trend that’s largely driven by greenhouse gases from human activities.

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Forty-eight hours before Ugandan voters went to the polls the country’s Communications Commission (UCC) imposed a social media blackout. It had been a bitter and violent election campaign pitting the 76-year-old veteran president, Yoweri Museveni against Robert Kyagulanyi – better known as Bobi Wine – a 38-year-old pop-star-turned-politician.

The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 136,000 residents and employees of long-term care facilities in the U.S. alone, accounting for nearly 40% of all U.S. deaths linked to the disease.

Saluting Their Service grants program provides more than $1-million to community groups that commemorate wartime service of Australians.

Astronauts know that by choosing to fly in space, they are going to have to live, work and play under isolated and confined conditions. Clearly, being a well trained astronaut flying in space is different to being thrust into another pandemic related lockdown. Yet instead of trivialising what we are...

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Man pretended to be a teenage social media celebrity in order to blackmail girls into providing him with sexually explicit images.

At least 15 airlines including EasyJet, British Airways and Emirates have announced major carbon offset schemes. Even BP has declared that it will be carbon neutral by 2050 by eliminating or offsetting over 415 million tons of carbon emissions (although the devil is always in the detail).

The current vaccination campaigns are not attempting to eradicate SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. But, based on the history of smallpox vaccination, even the much lower bar of herd immunity will be difficult to clear if we pin so much of our hope on vaccination.

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Volkswagen’s chairman, Herbert Deiss, has been struggling to bring the company’s stock price back to its previous heights since he took over the reins of the German car maker six years ago.

Important Scottish parliament elections are scheduled for May 2021 and the expectation is that the Scottish National Party will emerge as the biggest party, potentially even with enough votes to form a majority government, after ruling as a minority since 2016.

Boss of global consumer goods giant says its office-based employees will never go back to their desks five days a week after Covid.

Online communication tools – from email to virtual chat and video-conferencing – have transformed the way we work. In many respects they’ve made life easier. Without them we could not have made the shift to remote working during the COVID pandemic.

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A busy road in a New Zealand city has been closed for a month to ensure a mother sea lion and her youngster can travel to the beach in safety.

A global coalition of more than 50 countries have this week pledged to protect over 30% of the planet’s lands and seas by the end of this decade. Their reasoning is clear: we need greater protection for nature, to prevent further extinctions and protect the life-sustaining ecosystems crucial to human...

If the government is the legal owner of its funds, then, does it hold tax revenue in trust for taxpayers? Not at all. Subject to the rule of law, governments can do what they choose with their money.

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Given Palmer’s love of publicity stunts and populist policies, one might be tempted to see him as a miniature, Antipodean Donald Trump — but that would be misleading.

In July 1921, a French infant became the first person to receive an experimental vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), after the mother had died from the disease. The vaccine, known as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is the same one still used today.

Law Council and Bar Association come to the defence of the Family Court of Australia over corruption allegations in media.

Until recently, the prevailing view was this art was the handiwork of Neolithic farmers who arrived around 4,000 years ago from southern China rather than the hunter-gatherers who had lived on Sulawesi for tens of thousands of years.

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Australian Bureau of Statistics says there are more jobs available to Australians now, than there were before the pandemic struck.

The UK is connected to France, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the Netherlands by large power cables that allow electricity to flow between them. But the UK cannot rely on importing energy, as the cold and still conditions created during these atmospheric events also tend to affect neighbouring...