The 3.6 billion Santos coal seam gas project has been approved by the new south wales independent planning commission. 

The project is poised to construct 850 coal seam gas wells projected to supply half of new south wales gas supply.

A large number of concerns have been raised about potential ill effects the wells could have on the groundwater of nearby farmers.

The IPC has ensured that Santos would need to meet strict conditions in order to move into the construction and production phase. 

The Australia Defence Force is in talks to end their presence on the Queensland border as domestic travel restrictions begin to ease.

Approximately 500 troops have been supporting the Queensland governments efforts to maintain strict border regulations.

Deputy Premier Steve Miles has accused  the Prime Minister of using the ADF as a barging chip in to pressure Queensland into a more swift reporting of own borders.

The diversion come with the intention to redeploy troops to monitor hotel quarantine as more travellers return form overseas. 

A call has been made for South-East Queenslanders to take part in a US developed coronavirus vaccine trail. 

The trail comes as a collaboration between the University of the Sunshine Coast and the American ‘Operation Warp Speed’ project that is currently trailing a vaccine created by the US company Novovax.

Researchers are looking for 160 participants between the ages of 18 and 84 and joins nine other facilities around Australia as part of the current round of vaccination trails.

The Greens have proposed that all Queenslanders under the age of 18 should have their club sport registration paid for one season.

The proposal also outlines the ability for clubs to apply for grants up to $10,000 to help youth sports clubs to recover from the coronavirus. 

Yesterday Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that Australia would not be signing the global leaders pledge for nature, following suit with other nations such as the US, Russian, China and Brazil, ahead of the UN summit on biodiversity scheduled to happen later today.

The pledge has so far been endorsed by 64 countries committed to reversing damages to biodiversity by the year 2030. A spokesperson for Morrison stared that “Australia has already committed to a net zero emissions target by the second half of the century as set out in the Paris agreement.”

The first presidential debate of the US elections is set to take place today in Wisconsin at 11am Australian Eastern Time.

This will be the first time Joe Biden and Donald Trump will take the stage together and will be critical in guiding political discourse around each candidate as Biden holds a current lead in the polls and revelations that Trump allegedly paid only $750 US dollars in federal income tax in both 2016 and 2017 arose this week. 

The Morrison government has yesterday announced a $800 million plan which hopes to enable business to make better use of digital technologies.

Specifically, PM Scott Morrison says around $260 million will be invested to implement a facial recognition system within public sector organisations like Centrelink.

Yesterday the Queensland government approved the constructions of a new one billion dollar mine in central Queensland.

The mine will extract 15 million tonnes of coal each year and provide 1000 news jobs to regional Queenslanders.

The mine has been met with criticism as it requires the clearing of five thousand five hundred hectares of koala habitat.

Queensland has once again reported a day with zero new cases of coronavirus, leaving just eight known active cases in the state.

Queensland Health minister Steven Miles praised the state's efforts and says this is “exactly what we hope to see.”
 

The Health minister also committed to the creation of a new distribution hub in central Queensland that will provide a stock pile of essential supplies and equipment to hospitals.

Citing the pandemic as proving that "we can't be reliant on other countries for all of our medical supplies”.