The Royal Flying Doctors’ Service (RFDS) has recently launched an aviation mentoring program to bring in recruits.

Mount Isa senior base pilot Dave Keavy says that a combination of a global pilot shortage and the large amount of flight hours required have made it hard to find pilots.

This program hopes to address that issue by giving young pilots the chance to gain the 4,000 flight hours required for them to become aeromedical pilots.

A new mine located in the Bowen Basin has been approved and is expected to provide a boost for the Central Queensland economy.

Given the nod by the Queensland Government and the miner’s union, the mine is predicted to provide over 1,000 jobs. 

The Red Hill mine, situated near Moranbah, will be partly staffed by fly-in, fly-out workers but will also employ locally, giving the local community a boost. 

Image: Australia's Mining Monthly

Brisbane lord mayor Adrian Schrinner has proposed expanding the Brisbane Metro project to Brisbane Airport, despite the first stage of the $944 million dollar project not yet having broken ground.

The exact design of the metro vehicles has not yet been finalised nor a successful tenderer announced, but Counsellor Schrinner on Sunday said he wanted them to run all the way to the airport.

Queensland Police officers can now carry bottles of nail polish remover to deal with environmental protesters following a recent surge in demonstrators gluing themselves to roads.

Last Friday, Connor James Brooks, 18, received a stern warning in a Brisbane Court after he was arrested for supergluing himself and a friend to the Victoria Bridge and disrupting CBD traffic as part of an "Extinction Rebellion" demonstration.

Victoria Police have arrested 36 people after they refused to end their blockade of a bridge in central Melbourne.

Dozens of climate protesters on a mission to shut down a bridge in Melbourne's CBD have been arrested while the rest have since packed up and left.

"A number of protestors complied but police had to arrest 36 protestors who refused to leave the roadway," said a spokesperson from Victoria Police.

A parliamentary committee has recommended that a bill on a strengthened character test for visa applicants be passed in the Senate.

The measures would widen the grounds for visa cancellation and refusal; and make it easier to deport tens of thousands of migrants.

Under the proposed changes to Section 501 of the Migration Act 1958, visa-holders who have committed a crime that carries a maximum sentence of at least two years, such as common assault, will automatically fail the character test, even if they are not sentenced to jail. 

An American warship approached the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea on Friday to assert the nation's freedom of navigation in these international waters.

This was a strategic move by the Pentagon to counter the Chinese government's claim to the seas around the island chain- amidst Beijing's increasing military power that is seen as a growing threat.

The Chinese government’s claim states that it is "not permitted by international law" for other countries to make  "innocent passage" through the seas around this region.