Industry experts say Queensland's tourism profits have plunged due to a lack of interstate travel from Victoria and New South Wales that was expected in a school holiday boom.

Queensland on average occupies between eighty to a hundred percent for the school holiday break. However, recent cancellations estimate that there won’t be an accommodation provider across the state with more than forty percent occupancy.  

South Australia has recorded five new local COVID-19 cases, but Premier Steven Marshall says he will not impose a lockdown. 

Despite this, people have stripped supermarket shelves bare in attempts to stock up on household essentials. 

Mr Marshall has told reporters “Please be sensible about this, no lockdown in South Australia, no need whatsoever for panic buying.”

US comedian Bill Cosby has been released from prison after a US court overturned his conviction for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 2004.

His release came shortly after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Cosby had been denied a fair trial in 2018 when he was convicted of assaulting Andrea Constand at his Philadelphia mansion.

His conviction was a crucial guilty verdict for sexual assault against a celebrity kickstarting the reckoning against sexual violence and abuse of power dubbed the #MeToo movement.

A growing coronavirus outbreak in Fiji has prompted the government to offer jobless citizens tools and cash to become farmers. 

The pacific nation got through the first year of the pandemic without any significant outbreaks and just two virus deaths. However an outbreak of the delta variant two months ago has resulted in Fiji adding about two hundred and fifty new cases each day. 

Indonesia's rapid increase in COVID-19 cases has put the nation on the edge of a "catastrophe" as the more infectious Delta variant spreads. 

Indonesia has reported record daily COVID-19 infections of more than 20,000 in recent days, in a new wave of infections fuelled by the emergence of highly transmissible virus variants. 

Hospitals in several designated "red zone" areas have reported overcapacity, forcing many patients to be turned away with no medical attention. 

Almost half of all Australians are in lockdown as the country battles a wave of the coronavirus affecting almost all corners for the first time during the pandemic.

The Delta variant of COVID-19 is proving to be so contagious that state leaders are shutting down large portions of their states after only a few cases each, with now more than 11 million people nationally now in the grips of the strictest virus restrictions.

The auditor-general has found that a $660m federal government scheme ignored areas most in need and targeted Liberal-held or marginal seats before the 2019 election. 

A scathing review from the Australian National Audit Office lashed the Commuter Car Park program, part of the $4.8billion Urban Congestion fund, as “ineffective” and found money was allocated based on “political profile” 

A recent study shows that families spend more on childcare than on groceries or bills. Nearly one in three families spend more on childcare than on groceries and more than 80 per cent spend more that they do on their utility bills, therefore making childcare unaffordable for thousands of people across Australia. 

An analysis by education and health policy experts, the Mitchell Institute, has found childcare is too expensive for 386,000 families.