The University of Queensland is calling on children to help design a new playground.

UQ is planning on an all-abilities public playground at the St Lucia campus, and is holding a design competition to help create the best possible space.

Chief Operating Officer, Greg Pringle, says no one is better qualified to advise on the playground than children.

The Australian Defence Force is searching the Commonwealth Games venues to support Queensland Police Security measures.

Major General Paul McLachlan, commander of the ADF’s Games support, says the ADF is providing specialised capabilities that will enhance the local state police security arrangements.

The ADF has already begun searching a number of key locations during the lead up and will continue to search after the commencement of the Games.

Queensland has won the bid to build five billion dollars worth of fighting vehicles for the Australian Army.

The project is a part of the largest purchase in the Army’s history and 1450 jobs are expected to be created across the country.

Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne says the initiative will provide the Defence Force with modern capabilities which may be needed to face future challenges as the vehicles are equipped for peacekeeping and high threat operations.

A passenger has been diagnosed with measles on an Air Asia flight to Melbourne. 

An Australian man in his forties became unwell while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne and after touchdown was immediately taken to the hospital to confirm the measles diagnosis.

Victoria’s deputy chief health officer, Brett Sutton, says they are working to identify and contact passengers from the flight.

A former Perth City Council staffer, Brett Kenny has pleaded guilty to corruption and bribery charges.

This follows a 2015 charge after an investigation by the Corruption and Crime Commission uncovered the offenses committed while assigning contracts for public works.

Revealed in court, Kenny accepted one thousand dollars a month from an electrical contractor in exchange for a $5,000 monthly contract at the city of Perth in 2013.

An artist has carved a giant SOS message into an Indonesian palm oil plantation to bring awareness to the damage being done to the people and wildlife.

Ernest Zacarevic created the Save our Souls project as a campaign to highlight the impact plantations have on tribal communities and endangered species such as the orangutan.

Zacharevic says, “we, as consumers, are so detached from the source of our communities that we are no longer able to see the consequences of our daily choices.”

National Geographic has admitted its coverage of black and minority ethnic people has been historically racist.

An internal investigation last year revealed until the 1970s National Geo had ignored minority ethnic Amercians who weren’t labourers, and portrayed non-white people as “exoctics. Noble savages and every type of cliche”.

In the April magazine devoted to race, the editor-in-chief, Susan Goldberg, wrote that it’s a worthy moment to step back, to take stock of where we are on race.