Aboriginal Victorians aged 16 and over will be eligible to enrol and vote for a new electoral roll dedicated to help shape the rules for treaty negotiations.

Treaty Advancement Commissioner Jill Gallagher says ‘the community felt it was important that youth play a major role in whatever we design and go forward because it will probably be them that will be negotiating treaties.’

The First People’s Assembly will replace the Treaty Advancement Commission and work with the state to prepare for negotiations, including ground rules.

The Australian Electoral Commission has closed 26 polling booths in regional Victoria but has failed to  communicate the closes with residents regarding the decision.

Former Mayor of Horsham Rural City Council David Grimble says to close the polling booths ‘without notification and so close to the election is extremely disappointing.’

The AEC says it closed the polling booths because of low voting numbers and the difficulty involved in attracting electoral staff.

A building at the former Commonwealth Games Athletes’ Village has been repurposed and refitted by the Queensland Government to make way for Gold Coast’s newest coworking and innovation space — COHORT.

The former site of the Commonwealth Games hair salon, corner shop and police station has been transformed and is now a prime location for start-up businesses to lease space in a co-working environment.

Brisbane businesses will have significant opportunities to grow exports with a Queensland trade mission to Hong Kong and Chongqing.

Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries Mark Furner, who is leading the delegation, says businesses from the region were grabbing those opportunities with both hands at HOFEX, a major international trade event.

Mr Furner says Queensland is in prime position being only an eight hour flight from Hong Kong  with Hong Kong importing 95% of its food.

Britain has now gone a whole week without burning coal for power for the first time since the industrial revolution in the 1880s.

Home to the world's first coal-fuelled power plant, Britain has been burning coal for power steadily since 1882.

Now, in an ongoing effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent, Britain is aiming to abandon coal-fired power completely by 2025.

A US Senate Committee investigating claims of meddling in the 2016 election has allegedly subpoenaed US President’s son Donald Trump Jr.

According to two congressional sources, the Committee made the order to ask Trump Jr. questions about his contacts with Russia.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team of prosecutors reported there was a reasonable argument that Trump Jr. had violated campaign finance laws in their report into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

A $1 million project to restore seagrass off the Adelaide coast is about to begin as part of an effort to stop seabed erosion and support the marine environment.

South Australian Environment Minister Davie Speirs said about one third or 6000 hectares of seagrass off the Adelaide coast has been lost over the past 50 years and that seagrass is an important buffer for the ocean's wave and current energy that helps prevent erosion of nearshore areas

The project is set to re-establish seagrass meadows between suburban Glenelg and Semaphore.

The Northern Territory is set to hold the first conference on domestic, family and sexual violence over the next two days.

The two-day event will host frontline workers and experts as figures show more than 60 incidents of domestic violence are reported in the Territory each day.

Territory Families Chief executive, Ken Davies, said while the conference is a great step towards change, everyone has a powerful role to play in changing individual attitudes and behaviours towards violence.

The Gold Coast is set to host 360 dancers and 300 spectators in the city’s biggest ever live-music ballroom dance competition this Saturday, with $3500 in prize money up for grabs across four events.

180 couples, including two former Dancing with the Stars contestants, will face the challenge of adapting their performance to live-music that will be played by a nine-piece band, without any choice on their routine or choice of music.

The Federal Government has pledged $1 million to the Gold Coast’s Currumbin Wildlife Hospital to support koala populations in South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales.

The announcement on Tuesday from Gold Coast MP Karen Andrews is part of a $6 million initiative to protect the region’s koala habitats, with Senior Veterinarian Doctor Pyne saying the funding will allow upgrades to the facilities already overflowing with over 11,000 wildlife admissions annually.