Australian banks will be held to a higher standard after the implementation of a new code of practice which takes effect today, coinciding with the start of the financial year. 

The new code, which every major bank with customers has agreed to be bound by, introduces a number of new policies, including a mandatory offer of low-fee or no fee accounts to lower income customers. 

Queensland is set to scrap freight subsidies heavily relied on by farmers during droughts to offset food and water transport costs.

Queensland Agriculture Minister Mark Furner says the current scheme is outdated and farmers need to make plans which anticipate droughts instead.

Farmer Will Wilson worries the cuts will have a further mental toll, saying farmers need all the help they can get when up against drought conditions.

Oil has leaked onto the road after a semi-trailer hit a bridge in inner-Brisbane this morning, with the impact also knocking an empty shipping container off the vehicle and onto the road. 

Emergency services responded at 5:30am after the truck hit the protection beam of a rail bridge on Annerley Road in Woolloongabba near an intersection at Park Road. 

Brisbane’s Story Bridge will be closed for the next two Sundays while the Brisbane City Council performs inspections.

Two of the three northbound lanes will close on Sunday July 7 and lanes in an unconfirmed direction will be closed on Sunday July 14.

Earlier this year, the Story Bridge was closed for an entire weekend while the Brisbane City Council completed “essential waterproofing works”.

Queensland fathers walked from Brisbane’s CBD to South Brisbane on Saturday for the state’s first Man with a Pram event to support a national Dads Groups Inc fundraising campaign. 

The not-for-profit organisation aims to connect with new fathers and improve men’s health, prevent family violence, as well as reduce isolation and suicide.

Bakers Delight joint-chief executive and father David Christie supports the initiative, saying it is terrific to see an organisation focused on helping father's come together to learn and grow.

Queensland drivers caught texting while driving may face on-the-spot fines of $1000 if the Queensland Government continues to crackdown on distracted drivers.

Queensland Transport Minister Mark Bailey says text-driving is as dangerous as drink-driving, with mobile phone use being involved in 38 road deaths in 2017.

The proposed fine is over double the current penalty and would be the harshest distracted driving fine imposed by any Australian state.

The Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union called a Queensland mining company’s response to a fatal accident at Bowen’s Basin “unacceptably” slow. 

Mining union spokesperson Steve Smyth says emergency services travelled three hours from Mackay to reach the miner, who died at the scene.

The incident is the fifth Queensland mining death in the past 12 months, with three of them in coal.

Environmentalists removed about 40 tonnes of abandoned fishing nets last month from an area known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Non-profit group Ocean Voyages Institute removed the rubbish during a 25-day expedition by attaching GPS trackers to nets so they could be later located and removed. 

Ocean Voyages founder Mary Crowley says its success should herald the way for us to inspire and do larger clean-ups throughout the world. 

As many as half of China’s breeding pigs have either died from African swine fever or have been slaughtered because of the spreading disease, according to four people who supply large farms. 

The reduction of sows is expected to impact Chinese meat consumption by increasing food prices and decreasing livelihoods in an economy employing 40 million pig farmers. 

The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs says the disease has been “effectively controlled.”