A new $3.8 million dollar social housing complex supporting vulnerable Queenslanders has officially opened its doors in Townsville. 

Member for Thuringowa, Aaron Harper, said the new 14 unit complex in Kirwan had been built to deliver more social and affordable homes for North Queensland. 

All of the units have been built to either Gold, Platinum or Silver Standard under the Liveable Housing Design Guidelines, meaning they were designed with accessibility in mind. 

Labor senator, Pat Dodson, has blasted the Western Australian government for failing its one opportunity to protect Aboriginal heritage and stop the “tyranny of cultural genocide” after the state’s controversial new heritage bill was passed into law. 

The new law, introduced after Rio Tinto destroyed a 46,000-year-old cultural site at Juukan Gorge, has drawn anger from Aboriginal traditional owners, shareholder groups and even federal MPs. 

Under the new law, traditional owners do not have veto rights over the destruction of their sacred sites. 

In a developing story, several children have fallen from a height of 10 meters, causing serious injuries, after wind blew a jumping castle into the air at a Tasmanian Primary School.

Hillcrest Primary School, in Tasmania’s North West, was running an end of year celebration within school grounds as opposed to a usual school picnic. 

Ambulance Tasmania said it responded to the incident after quote “a wind event caused a jumping castle to lift into the air” - noting as well that “some serious injuries occurred.”

Former Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, has pleaded guilty in a federal court to charges he violated the civil rights of George Floyd, likely extending Chauvin’s prison sentence by several years after his earlier conviction for Floyd’s murder in state court.

The 45 year old former police officer had already been sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison in June after a jury convicted him for the murder of Floyd in 2020.

Screen Queensland today announced the first members of its Equity and Diversity Taskforce to develop a comprehensive, 3 year diversity plan to increase representation across film, series and games in the state.

Nominations were invited in June this year from individuals based across Australia, within and outside the screen industry, from under-represented backgrounds and with demonstrated experience in diversity action.

Two protected Australian lungfish kept illegally at a Gympie property have been given a new home, in a partnership between the Queensland Government and SEA LIFE Sunshine Coast Aquarium. 

Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol officers found the two lungfish in a backyard pond when they searched a Gympie property with the Queensland Police Service. 

Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries, Mark Furner, said Fisheries Queensland has donated the lungfish to the sunshine coast aquarium following a successful compliance investigation. 

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up almost 30% of all those hospitalised for domestic and family violence despite only making up 3.3% of the population, according to a recent examination of hospital stays. 

The Australian Institute of Public Health released a report detailing that those hospitalised for family and domestic violence were 1.3 times more likely to die than those hospitalised for other reasons. 70% of those hospitalised are female.

A group of Senegalese lawmakers in west Africa have drafted a law that would tighten their already repressive laws against same-sex relations, lengthening potential jail terms for those convicted of LGBT+ activities. 

According to a 2020 global review by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), arrests have risen sharply in Senegal, with the current law already targeting anyone who commits an "act against nature" with persons of the same gender.