Victorian health officials are reviewing whether further restrictions are needed to respond to a growing COVID-19 outbreak in Melbourne.

The total number of cases in the new cluster is 15 - more cases than the outbreak that prompted Melbourne’s five-day lockdown in February. 

Acting Premier James Merlino said he will not rule out taking further action. 

A full list of exposure sites can be found on the Victorian Government’s Department of Health’s website.

Adani has reported an 82 per cent decline in numbers of black-throated finch birds at their Carmichael coal mine site from 2018 to 2019. 

The Black-throated Finch Management Plan 2020 indicates the number of endangered birds in the region dropped from one thousand and 26 in 2018 to just one hundred and 85 in 2019.

The region is home to the world’s largest population of the endangered finch, a key reason the mine’s approval was opposed by conservationists.

A school in outback Queensland is teaching the local Aboriginal language in a bid to bring back an endangered dialect. 

The Gunggari language program, taught by local indigenous elders, could act as a blueprint in other outback schools. 

Queensland, once home to over 150 indigenous languages, now has only 20, with less than two per cent of the state's schools teaching indigneous language.

Callide Power Station in central Queensland will likely remain offline until the end of next week. 

This follows the explosion and fire that left nearly half a million homes without power on Tuesday afternoon.   

The Queensland government is connecting the state's largest battery to the power transmission network at Wandoan in the Darling Downs in order to supplement Queensland’s energy supply.

Queensland town of Oakey is looking to recover from groundwater contamination of the potentially harmful chemicals PFAS five years ago that sent the economy plummeting.

The PFAS contamination of groundwater, came from the neighbouring Defence force base and  left house values almost worthless.

New data from the Real Estate Institute of Queensland shows the median price for house has risen almost 12 per cent.

Travel restrictions will return to Queensland tomorrow in the wake of Victoria's COVID outbreak.  Queensland Health has declared the local government area of Whittlesea City a hotspot from 1:00am Thursday.

From tomorrow, only Queensland residents who have been in the region since Tuesday May 11, will be allowed to enter the state but they will be required to complete hotel quarantine.

Non-residents will be turned away, unless they have an approved exemption, which will also be subject to hotel quarantine.

A University of New South Wales research team calculates, there are 50 billion individual wild birds and more than 9,700 (nine thousand and seven hundred)  different bird species in the world.

The researchers used data collected by 600,000 six hundred thousand citizen scientists to come to the figure in the world-first study.

The findings show there are about six birds per human being on the planet and there are only four species with a population greater than one billion.

The Dutch court, the Hague, will rule on whether fossil fuel companies are responsible for the effects of climate change in a landmark case today.

Shell was sued by the Dutch arm of Friends of the Earth whose lawyers argue that the company is violating human rights by extracting fossil fuels.

The verdict will only be legally binding in the Netherlands, however, the case may guide deliberations by judges elsewhere.

The royal commission heard allegations of a forged signature yesterday from long-time racing, gaming and liquor bureaucrat Nick Toyne who said he did not write a report which led to the Crown casino watchdog making it easier for junket operators with criminal links to come to Crown Perth.

Another issue being considered in the commission is conflicts of interest, with Mr Toyne discussing how he married a casino employee while he was working as a casino inspector.

Victoria's Department of Health says there were 10 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 detected in the state yesterday.

That includes five cases announced yesterday, which were all part of the City of Whittlesea cluster.

The five latest cases are said to have strong links to existing cases in the cluster.

The positive cases were detected from 26,180 test results