Queensland Health director-general says ambulance officers cannot be kept waiting outside

Queensland Health’s director-general has corrected a memo to Logan Hospital’s staff to turn patients away due to overcrowding.

The memo originally instructed staff to keep ambulance officers waiting outside the hospital if all nine waiting bays were full, which is a practice known as ‘ramping’.

Director-General Michael Walsh overturned the memo, reiterating that no one who arrives at emergency departments will be rejected.

NBN a ‘good quality service’, as national telco complaints drop

New figures from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman reveal Queenslanders lodged 11,585 complaints about telco and internet services, with the Ombudsman calling the figures an improvement.

Nationally, complaints between July and December 2018 dropped 27.7 per cent over the same period in the previous year from well over 80,000 to just over 60,000.

Some of the most common complaints included lack of action from the service provider, no working phone or internet service, slow data speed and termination fees.

The Snakes

- Again, David Chesworth is the subject of a reissue by Chapter Music. This time round it’s his second solo album Layer On Layer from 1981. Chesworth has been an audio/visual artist since the 1970s, acting as the co-ordinator of the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre, founding Innocent Records with Philip Brophy and playing in groups Tch Tch Tch, Essendon Airport, and Whadya Want (amongst others).

David Chesworth: Layer On Layer

- Again, David Chesworth is the subject of a reissue by Chapter Music. This time round it’s his second solo album Layer On Layer from 1981. Chesworth has been an audio/visual artist since the 1970s, acting as the co-ordinator of the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre, founding Innocent Records with Philip Brophy and playing in groups Tch Tch Tch, Essendon Airport, and Whadya Want (amongst others).

The latest NAPLAN results show a ‘significant’ improvement for Indigenous students

The latest NAPLAN results show a ‘significant’ improvement for Indigenous students and students from multicultural backgrounds in reading, writing and numeracy.

Results are proving Indigenous students are improving at a faster rate. Among year three Indigenous students, results improved by 7.4 per cent between 2008 and 2018, compared to 4.2 per cent for non-Indigenous students.

A bomb attack in central India has killed five people

A bomb attack in central India has killed five people, including a local politician from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Bhima Mandavi was a state legislator from the Chhattisgarh state legislative assembly and was returning from an election rally when he and his security personnel were attacked in the Dantewada district of the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.

Police say it is suspected the attack was made by Maoist rebels.

Liberal senator Ian Macdonald to apologise for linking Penny Wong to Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo

Liberal senator Ian Macdonald has been asked to apologise for linking Labor Senator Penny Wong to Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo during Senate Estimates on Tuesday.

Senator Macdonald mixed up the names Wong and Huang and asked if the Labor senator was related.

Labor leader Bill Shorten sent out a statement to Chinese media following the exchange calling Senator Macdonald’s comment as an, “Asian slur”.

Australia’s tyre waste and fuel security problems could soon be behind us

Australia’s tyre waste and fuel security problems could soon be behind us with a Gladstone oil refinery saying they have found a solution.

Southern Oil Refineries has successfully conducted large scale pilot tests on its biodiesel made from old tyres says manager Ben Tabulo.

"[We've proven] renewable diesel can work in Australia's engines and does have the same efficiency on the road," he says.

"The renewable diesel … has been refined from post-consumer waste, mainly mixed tyre crude oil and refined into 100 per cent drop-in diesel.

Each year more people die from domestic violence related suicide than homicide

New figures from the Domestic and Family Violence Death Review and Advisory Board have found 120 suicides related to domestic violence in the last three years, compared to 71 homicides in the same period.

The suicide figure includes five children aged between 10 and 17 years old, and two women, who were in women’s shelters.