Malcolm Turnbull is due for a beer at the Beach Hotel in Burnie on Thursday night. But punters don't care about the Prime Minister. There's only one name of talk: Craig Garland.

The 54-year-old has emerged as the third force in the in Braddon byelection. Last state election, he won 2000 primary votes - the most of a minor party candidate, after an $800 campaign, just two weeks before polling day.

Aussies will soon be sipping through paper straws at McDonald’s after the company announced it would phase out plastic straws over the next two years.

Environmentalists say the move is a step in the right direction.

A trial of paper straws will start in August in two outlets and will roll out to all 970 restaurants nationwide by 2020.

The move comes as supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles get rid of free plastic bags.

Whale researchers are concerned recreational boaties on Queensland's Gold Coast are crowding humpback mothers and their newborn calves, breaching state regulations for watching marine mammals.

Griffith University researcher, Olaf Meynecke, counted eight boats surrounding a mother as she lifted her newborn calf out of the water, despite rules no more than three boats could be present at a time.

New research has revealed Brisbane motorists are paying the highest rates for short-term CBD parking in the country.

The RACQ's annual parking report revealed half hour and hourly rates were far more expensive in the river city than in Sydney or Melbourne.

The average hourly rate is $28.71 for an hour or $16.98 for 30 minutes, nearly double the cost in Melbourne and 37 per cent more than Sydney.

At least 19 people have died after a boat capsized off the northern coast of Cyprus, according to the Turkish coast guard.

Rescue crews were able to save 103 people but were still searching for around 25 others, the coastguard said in a statement on Wednesday.

It shared footage of a plane, a helicopter and four rescue boats being dispatched to the scene of the accident.

The capsizing occurred around 30km north of Cyprus' Karpas Peninsula. The exact cause and time of the accident was not immediately known.

European summers are getting increasingly hotter alongside rising temperatures throughout the globe, but the growth of air-conditioning throughout the continent is still lagging behind that of the US and Australia.

Commuters on a Vienna U6 subway line felt the heat when carriages reached 35 degrees celsius this summer, higher than the restricted temperatures placed on livestock transport in the country.

A review of the Australian tax system by the Parliamentary Budget Office has brought tax vulnerabilities into focus, months before the Turnbull government and Labor battle over tax in the next federal election.

Workers will contribute more to Australia's overall tax system unless the government delivers major tax reform, as companies minimise their tax obligations, along with lower consumer spending.

Despite the Government reassuring workers that wage growth is just around the corner, a leading investment bank has warned that even its most far-reaching forecasts show no meaningful change in the unemployment rate.

Economists at big investment bank JP Morgan argue the run of solid jobs growth is now basically over.

"We think the unemployment rate is going to stay well within that very tight 5.4 to 5.6 per cent range for the next little while," JP Morgan chief economist Sally Auld said.

A Brisbane teen, Jennifer Mai from Brisbane State High School in year ten, has won the brainiest student award at the 2018 Australian Brain Bee Award.

137 students from 43 schools in the state competed in the challenge, narrowing down to ten finalists facing off in two rounds of live questioning.

A group of three emerged: Jennifer, runner-up Meghan Camp from Kirwan State High School and third-placed Markus Brits from Westside Christian College.