Humans Rights Watch documents are reporting that migrants are being physically abused and trafficked to work on Thai boats in the fishing industry.

These workers are not paid on time and paid less than the minimum wage, and reports say anyone trying to escape the slavery are beaten and sometimes even killed in the presence of others.

Due to its trafficking persons report, Thailand has been put on the United States “Tier 2” watchlist.

Trade Minister Steve Ciobo has confirmed Australia will continue to pursue a direct trade agreement with the UK once they have exited the UK despite Britain expressing interest in the Trans-pacific partnership.

Mr Ciobo said the fact the UK wants to be a part of the agreement shows it is a high-quality trade agreement.

The eleven countries remaining party to the agreement after Trump pulled out last year are expected to sign in March in Chile.

Corporate regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), has conducted a survey of conflicts of interest within the big banks and AMP, ahead of the Royal Commission which is due to start in February.

The survey found that seventy-five per cent of the files reviewed by ASIC, in which a recommendation was made to switch to an 'in-house' product, failed the best interests test.

New research into the trends and causes associated with road deaths has found seven out of 10 fatalities on the roads are men.

Experts said this was because men are more likely to be aggressive and take risks on the roads, but add more men drive than women, with eighty five per cent of workers in road freight transport are men.

But avoiding the driver's’ seat doesn’t necessarily mean you’re safe, with passengers, pedestrians and cyclists accounting for forty three percent of deaths.

Smashed Avo on toast is being taken off menus around Brisbane as seasonal price surges of Avocado’s hits Cafe owners hard.

On Tuesday this week, Coles and Woolworths were both selling avocados for upwards of $3.50 each, with some wholesale suppliers charging as much as $100 for a tray of staple cafe breakfast rotation.

Avocado Australia chief executive John Tyas said most current supplies were from New Zealand, where weather events coupled with the busy Christmas period had affected supply.

According to the Report on Government Services, released by the Productivity Commission, one in four clients of specialist homeless services in Queensland missed out on getting access to suitable accommodation in 2016-17.

The report suggests 43.5 per cent of low income private rental households were in rental stress in Queensland in 2015-16, meaning that they spend more than 30% of their household income on rent.

There has been calls for Facebook to be regulated like cigarette companies, in a statement made to the World Economic Forum in Davos by chief executive for Salesforce, Marc Benioff.

Benioff said “for sure, technology has addictive qualities that we have to address, and that product designers are working to make those products more addictive, and we need to rein that back as much as possible,”

A far right politician for the controversial Alternative for Deutschland or AfD party has resigned, after it was discovered he had converted to Islam.

Surging to popularity before the 2017 election, AfD gained widespread notoriety for anti-immigration policy after Germany admitted more than 1.5 million refugees on a humanitarian basis.

This is the second far right politician to be caught converting to Islam, as the Dutch far right party expelled one of its own members over a pilgrimage to mecca.

The Victorian opposition are being criticised by teachers and principals because of their plans to overtake state school’s curriculum.

The Liberal Opposition Leader Matthew Guy and opposition education spokesman Tim Smith have launched the “School Education Values Statement” today and say Victoria’s curriculum will be changed if the Coalition wins.

The statement does not go into much detail and contains no budget commitments, however, it does set out themes the Coalition wants to follow.