Political hopeful Clive Palmer has lost a legal bid to have criminal charges brought against him thrown out of court.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is bringing charges against Palmer for breaching corporate law in relation to his 2012 proposal to buy shares of another company that owned properties at his Sunshine Coast resort.

Mr Palmer has also come under fire recently for using crass language to refer to Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill during a press conference outside his campaign office.

New fines for public transport commuters will come into effect this weekend, in an Queensland Government effort to curb bad behaviour on the network.

Feet on seats, littering and misusing seating or taking up more than one seat on trains, buses and ferries, will all attract greater fines from tomorrow.

Transport Minister Mark Bailey said fines and warnings would be issued by officers when patrolling the network.

New Zealand authorities have approved an American whistleblower’s visa.

Activist Chelsea Manning, who was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment for leaking classified documents, had her sentence commuted by President Obama in 2017.

The Australian leg of her speaking tour was cancelled earlier this week after the Government stated it would deny her entry to the country.

Japan has hit a record high for the number of recorded child abuse cases for the 27th year straight, with almost 134,000 reported incidents - a 9.1 per cent increase from 2017.

The Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry has attributed the rise to an increase in psychological abuse cases involving spousal violence in front of children.

The Japanese government plans to develop child counselling centres and introduce the number of counsellors.  

The Queensland Government is launching a 100 per cent green energy company to reduce yearly energy bills.

The company called CleanCo is the first state-owned green energy generator, with the state’s two other companies coal and gas companies dependent.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says the new energy enterprise will slash $70 a year from household power bills.

In Scott Morrison’s first visit overseas since securing the top job, he is meeting with Indonesian officials in Jakarta to talk free trade and strategic security.

The foreign venture will be a test for Mr Morrison, as skills in diplomacy and statesmanship were not cornerstones of his former portfolios of Treasury and Immigration.

Indonesian Prime Minister Joko Widodo will welcome the Australian PM to Jakarta’s presidential palace before the one-on-one meeting between the leaders.

Brisbane bus drivers are undergoing training to ensure their personal safety and that of passengers against aggressive and intoxicated passengers.

Public and active transport chairman, Adrian Schrinner, says buses to be delivered in the 2018-2019 financial year will also be fitted with driver protection barriers.

The training follows recommendations from the Brisbane City Council’s Ausafe report and state government’s Deloitte Report in response to the death of bus driver, Manmeet Sharma, at Moorooka in 2016.

Refugee Action Collective will be holding an emergency rally tonight in King George Square at 5:30 pm to highlight the crisis of children on Nauru.

Last week, a 12-year-old refugee attempted to set herself alight, while another 17-year-old is refusing food. Local doctors are pleading for children on Nauru to be brought to Australia.

Child safety officers are warning of a growing presence of self-harm, attempted suicides and refusal of food, as well as an increase in serious child psychiatric disorders.