Record numbers of music lovers and happy campers have returned from the Big Red Bash music festival in outback Queensland this weekend, despite COVID-19 restrictions locking some people out of the state.

A record breaking ten thousand attendees have ventured to the festival outside Birdsville which was armed with a government approved COVID-Safe plan.

Event organiser, Greg Donovan said, “It’s been a huge challenge, but we’ve worked through so many issues and just managed to move on.” 

For the second year in a row COVID-19 is causing headaches for grain farmers, who are begging the Federal and state governments to allow them to bring in overseas machinery drivers for this year's harvest.

Last year, with borders closed due to COVID-19, farmers were so desperate for labour they trained stood-down pilots to drive their harvesters.

This year, they do not want to battle on again and Mic Fels has called on the state and Federal Governments to allow several thousand vaccinated workers from the northern hemisphere.

Victoria has gone another day with no new local COVID-19 cases, as the state prepares to take further steps out of restrictions from Friday.

It's the eighth consecutive day without a locally acquired case being recorded and from 11:59pm today, masks will no longer be required in schools and private workplaces such as offices and factories.

Density rules will also relax across hospitality and retail, provided COVID marshals are in place to ensure everyone is checking in.

Two Olympic Village workers in Tokyo have tested positive for COVID-19 days before the village opened to athletes.

The Tokyo Organising Committee revealed the pair tested positive last week and had been eating with two other village workers.

Dining with other workers is forbidden under the Committee's own regulations.

Tokyo organisers and the International Olympic Committee are expected to announce the policy after a meeting later this week.

The Queensland Premier has defended her decision to fly to the Tokyo Olympics this month, as an online petition trying to stop her surpasses 30,000 signatures.

Many of those signing the petition are believed to be Australians stranded overseas who are calling for Annastacia Palaszczuk to remain in Australia until she changes her stance on cutting hotel quarantine numbers.

But Ms. Palaszczuk says her attendance in Tokyo is crucial in securing the games for Brisbane in 2032 and helping Queensland recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

The W&J Nagana Yarrbayn Cultural Custodians, a group of Traditional Owners of Wangan and Jagalingou Country have raised the alarm over environmental practices by Adani Mining. 

Senior W&J cultural custodian, Adrian Burragubba said, “We have seen the destruction that the operations are already causing in our country, and we are deeply disappointed by the Government’s inadequate response to our request for urgent action.”

A parliamentary inquiry has opened into section 131a of the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Act, with advocates calling for something more clearly defined and tougher penalties for hate crimes. 

A group of 20 non-profit organisations, the Cohesive Communities Coalition lobbied the state government for the inquiry as part of a broader review of the discrimination act in light of more targeted attacks in part attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Christchurch mosque massacre.

Basketballer Patty Mills has been named Australia’s first Indigenous flag bearer for the Tokyo Olympics, alongside Cate Campbell.

Patty Mills said "As the first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flag bearer, my connection between our country and this particular moment runs extremely deep.”

The opening ceremony for the Games, which were postponed a year because of the global coronavirus pandemic, will be held on 23 July.

Victoria is the only state in Australia recording data about ethnicity as part of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, which some experts argue is vital to understanding the impacts of the pandemic on different communities.

In March, federal authorities told the ABC that data on languages spoken and country of birth would be collected when coronavirus vaccines are given and when people test positive for COVID.

A Brisbane man living in Bardon has allegedly had the Aborignal flag hoisted outside his home cut down and stolen from his front yard. 

Brad, who has first nations ancestry and who had raised the flag outside his residential home two weeks ago said the incident had been really confronting.

Given NAIDOC Week celebrations he said the act of cutting the flag down is assumed to have some kind of racial motivation behind it.