Horse drawn carts could be banned in certain areas of Melbourne’s Central Business District after the Victorian Government made a proposal to ensure safer streets and protect animal welfare.

Should the proposal pass, horse drawn carriages will not be permitted on Central business district streets including Flinders Street, Spring Street, La Trobe Street and Spencer Street.

The decision comes after eight years of campaigning by the animal rights group Melbourne Against Horse Drawn Carriages.

First Nations dance company Bangarra announced its appointment of its first female artistic director. 

Frances Rings will take on the role after the 2022 season which will feature a ten year anniversary remount of Ring’s work Terrain.

Bangarra's current artistic director of thirty years said the move to step down was a matter of instinct.

The Waste Recycling Industry Association of Queensland has released a report on investment in regional initiatives funded through levy collection, which found that Queensland was the last state government to sign up to the Recycling Modernisation Fund and was lagging behind on waste and recycling targets. 

With a 54% resource recovery rate, the state is a considerable way behind national leader South Australia, which has an 83% recovery rate. 

QUT, Griffith University and USQ are working to impose vaccine mandates even if the Queensland Government refuses.

Premier Annastascia Palaszczuk announced mandates requiring workers at private schools, state schools, prisons, youth detention centres, and airports, but has stopped short of extending the mandate to universities. 

An investigation and report tabled in the NSW Parliament has found that NSW government debt collection agency, Revenue NSW, has been illegally using an automated system to withdraw funds for unpaid fines directly from peoples bank accounts. 

The report found that artificial intelligence was being used by Revenue NSW to withdraw money from the bank accounts of people who had failed to pay fines, but the practice was never overseen by a real person. 

The World Bank is working to free up $500 million dollars from a frozen Afghanistan aid fund to humanitarian agencies, but the plan to redirect the funds remains riddled with complications including stifling US sanctions. 

Afghanistan’s 39 million people face a cratering economy, a winter of food shortages and growing poverty three months after the Taliban seized power as the last US troops withdrew from 20 years of war. 

Gold Coast residents are again on high alert as another COVID case has been detected, with shoppers who attended the Black Friday sales at Robina Town Centre in the Gold Coast being asked by health authorities to isolate and get tested. 

The patient visited Rebel Sport, JB Hifi, and Target stores at the shopping centre between 1:40 pm and 2:30 pm last Friday.

Queensland Health authorities are investigating the source of transmission and are expected to provide further information and any other potential exposure sites later today. 

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has defended a 12 month investigation after 11 women complained about a Queensland Health manager who was accused of insulting co-workers with derogatory names and playing sexually charged “game ratings.”

According to the report, the investigation “partially substantiated” the allegations but found that quote, “name calling in the team is normal and done in an endearing manner.”