A NEW citizen science project led by UNSW Sydney is inviting beachgoers, snorkelers and divers to spot and share photographs of seagrass flowers along Australia’s coasts. The endangered seagrass Posidonia australis forms rich underwater meadows that capture carbon, support fisheries, and help stabilise shorelines. It’s one of the most important habitats in coastal ecosystems but […]

A QUIET life in the countryside appeals to nearly half of Australia’s city residents, but concerns about access to health care, housing and jobs are stopping them making the move. Country Australia is on track to become home to 11 million people by 2032, or 40 percent of the population, while 40 percent of people […]

THE chance of large-scale flooding in a specific catchment area can increase by as much as 700 percent if widespread deforestation has occurred. That is the finding of a new paper by academics who analysed decades of flooding data from regions in Australia which frequently suffer forest fires. The loss of forest canopy has long […]

SOME regional Australians may get a reprieve from the housing crisis as councils are offered interest relief to build more drains, roads, and other infrastructure. Though many parts of regional Australia have ample residential land, it often isn’t ready for development due to a lack of funding and planning for critical infrastructure, a 2024 national […]

The plan includes extra bus services across the Hunter. Photo: Transport for NSW. The area covered by the Hunter Strategic Regional Integrated Transport Plan. THE Hunter needs more public transport. That’s the key takeaway from the NSW Government’s just-released Hunter Strategic Regional Integrated Transport Plan, which sets out 49 short and medium-term actions across public […]

Building inspectors visited sites between Port Stephens and Port Macquarie. Building inspectors visited sites between Port Stephens and Port Macquarie. THE Building Commission NSW has released the results of its three-day inspection blitz of worksites between Port Stephens and Port Macquarie. During August, a team of inspectors visited 41 sites across Nelson Bay, Forster, Diamond […]

LIVING in one of Australia’s fastest growing regional areas, Anna Noon was watching in despair as nature made way for sprawling housing developments. “There was a lot of land clearing happening,” she says of her home at Lake Macquarie in the rapidly-expanding Hunter region. “I knew that was leading to habitat loss, species extinction and […]

NATIONAL Broadband Network promises from over a decade ago are finally being realised on the Myall Coast. Representatives from NBN Co, a state-owned corporation that operates Australia’s NBN network as the nation’s wholesale broadband provider, visited areas of the Myall Coast last week to explain the connection options that are or soon will be becoming […]

AUSTRALIA is failing its younger generations and the chair of the Productivity Commission believes a policymaker “growth mindset” can help. Danielle Wood says the generational bargain is in peril. “Young people today believe they won’t live better lives than their parents did,” the head of the nation’s economic think tank will say at the National […]

PARENTS and advocates say reforms to improve working-with-children checks are a step in the right direction but they want more action to keep kids in childcare safe. Fast-tracked reforms unveiled on Friday will ensure that by the end of the year, anyone prevented from holding a working-with-children check in one state or territory will be […]