As NAPLAN testing gets underway today some parents are choosing to withdraw their children from the tests. 

The federal government says the data is more vital now since the last year’s tests were cancelled due to COVID-19.

The Teacher’s Union is opposed to the testing, as it allows parents and schools to compare the results. The Union is encouraging its own members to opt their children out of the test as part of its campaign to abolish it completely.

Surf Life Saving Queensland is set to integrate drones and artificial intelligence into its beach patrol and disaster relief operations after buying search and rescue technology company The Ripper Group.

SLSQ director Grant Dearlove says the integration of drones into patrol operations will allow the service to save more lives and make life saving more attractive to young people.

Drones were first used as shark spotters on the Gold Coast in September last year but are expected to take on a bigger role this surf season following the merger.

Surf Life Saving Queensland is set to integrate drones and artificial intelligence into its beach patrol and disaster relief operations after buying search and rescue technology company The Ripper Group.

SLSQ director Grant Dearlove says the integration of drones into patrol operations will allow the service to save more lives and make life saving more attractive to young people.

Drones were first used as shark spotters on the Gold Coast in September last year but are expected to take on a bigger role this surf season following the merger.

Major train delays across Sydney continue after a Police operation at Westmead Station. Services were suspended after multiple reports of a man seen walking on the tracks.

With crowds of people left stuck at stations across the western Sydney suburbs, people are being urged to use buses instead.

Reports are emerging from Colombia of a rising number of armed vigilante attacks against protestors, as anti-government demonstrations continue throughout the country.

Protestors from several indigenous minority groups in the city of Cali, the movement’s epicentre, say men in civilian clothes and armed with assault rifles are firing on protestors.

Anti-government demonstrations are now in their third week in Colombia after anger over a proposed tax reform morphed into a movement decrying a general rise in inequality in the country.

Israeli police have cancelled the annual Jerusalem Day March through occupied East Jerusalem today, amid rising tensions and increasing violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

The controversial event marks Israel’s recapturing of East Jerusalem from Jordan in the nineteen sixty-seven Six Day War and usually sees ultraconservative Israeli youth marching through Palestinian districts of the city.

Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick says the Federal budget infrastructure funding is a “rotten rip-off”.

A 2.5 metre long Great White shark has been spotted off the coast of Surfers Paradise in the Gold Coast by local charter boat operator Shannon Green. Mr Green was fishing on his boat near the popular tourism hotspot when he saw a shark fin come out of the water before circling the boat. Great Whites are more common in Southern Australia in cooler waters but Mr Green says it was really cool to see the shark so docile just having a look around.

Queensland Clerk of state Parliament Nick Laurie says some of the “wider safeguards,” implemented in the wake of the Fitzgerald inquiry have been “fatally weakened,” in his submission to a committee review into Queensland’s Crime and Corruption Commission. Mr Laurie was particularly critical of the Commission’s increasing use of closed hearings and what he called “secrecy restraints,” saying the measures reduced the amount of information available to the public and made scrutiny more difficult. Mr Laurie also used his submission to voice concerns over the decline of investigative journalism