Live: Bill to cut Australians' HECS debts by 20 per cent passes parliament

42m agoThu 31 Jul 2025 at 3:08am FBI director Kash Patel makes secretive visit to Australia The ABC has been told that the Director of the FBI, Kash Patel, made a secretive visit to Australia this week, although the trip hasn't been publicly...

5 reasons why wind farms are costing more in Australia – and what to do about it

Building a solar farm in Australia is getting about 8% cheaper each year as panel prices fall and technology improves, according to an official new report. Battery storage costs are falling even more sharply, dropping 20% over the past year alone....

Australia wheat harvest outlook improves after July rains

MELBOURNE: Rainfall across Australia’s grain-growing regions in July has improved the outlook for the nation’s 2025 wheat harvest, with traders now forecasting around 33 million tons. The revised estimate was discussed at Wednesday’s Australian...

Lower Demand Drives Fall In Export Prices: Australia

Prices for Australia’s natural resources drove this fall, with Non-rural exports down 7.2 per cent in the June quarter and 8.7 per cent since June 2024. The main drivers of the fall in non-rural export prices were iron ore (Metalliferous ores and...

Canada joins US with direct beef export access approval to Australia

CANADA been granted approval to export chilled and frozen fresh beef to Australia, along similar lines to last week’s announcement about resumption of US exports. Canadian beef was banned from entry back in 2003, when the country detected BSE at...

Corn, wheat end last session of July mixed

Market News Corn, wheat end last session of July mixed Soybeans were lower on fund and technical selling. There was another round of pressure from favorable development conditions and big crop expectations. Key development phases are rapidly...

Average 2024 tax return hits $5,000 for Australian small businesses

Small business owners received an average of $5,000 in tax refunds for the financial year ending June 2024, new data has revealed. Source: Adobe Stock. Small business owners reportedly enjoyed healthy tax refunds for the 2024 financial year. New...

Why Australians celebrate Christmas twice a year

ShareSave For many Australians, July is a second festive season Six Irishmen walk into a bar. This might sound like the start of a joke but, as legend has it, it's actually the beginning of Christmas in July in Australia. While this month is...

NZ & Australia await US tariff hikes

As expected, the Fed kept policy on hold and there were only minor tweaks to the release. There was a nod to growth slowing, noting economic activity “moderated in the first half of the year”, previously characterised as expanding at a solid pace....

German backpacker Carolina Wilga’s van retrieved by Western Australian farmers

Transition Thursday: Australia to lead decarbonisation goals

For this week’s Transition Thursday, several companies have been releasing reports regarding Australia’s resources sector or outlining the environmental progresses on how they are contributing to the energy transition. In PwC Australia’s latest...

Advancing Bushfire Preparedness In Australia

CSIRO Artificial intelligence (AI) can help transform how we understand and respond to the escalating threat of bushfires. We start this journey with the first imagery now available from the proto satellite launched by Muon Space earlier this...

South African couple beg to stay in Australia amid fears of racial violence back home: 'Our death sentence'

A hard-working couple face an anxious wait to see if they will be kicked out of the country and forced to return to South Africa. Charné-Lee Gunning, 31, and her fiancé Ivan Strauss, 37, arrived in Australia on visitor visas in December 2018 after...

Concerns grow over fish farm expansion in WA waters

Traditional owners in Western Australia's far north say they are growing increasingly concerned over seafood giant Tassal's plans to expand its fish farming operation off the remote Kimberley coast. Known for its salmon farming off Tasmania,...

Cow's milk alternative tastes like 'ice cream', sheep dairy farmers say

Did you know sheep's milk is considered to have more nutrients than cow's milk? The sheep dairy industry in Australia is small, particularly when compared to regions like the Mediterranean where sheep's milk and cheese are an integral part of...

Beef farmers likely first in line for emissions-reducing livestock pill

Photo: RNZ/Susan Murray Industry-government venture AgriZero is hinting that New Zealand beef may be the first agricultural sector to gain access to tools like a new methane-reducing pill for livestock - and soon. Ruminant BioTech was developing a...

Report offers insights into crop loss and waste on Australian horticultural farms

Dept of Agriculture The average percentage of crop loss or waste per Australian horticultural farm dropped in 2023-24 and varied significantly depending on crop type, new data collected by ABARES reveals. The report, Crop loss/waste on Australian...

Climate change and farming: New Zealand beef sector likely first in line for emissions-reducing livestock pill

AgriZeroNZ first invested $1.8 million into Ruminant BioTech’s product in April 2023, followed by $4m to accelerate its commercialisation in August. AgriZeroNZ chief executive Wayne McNee said the company was planning a limited release for beef...

Neurodiversity in farming takes centre stage at roundtable

Neurodiversity in agriculture took a significant step forward on 15 July, as industry leaders gathered to shape the next phase of the Level the Field campaign, now in its second year. A coalition of agricultural organisations, farm businesses,...

Heather Ewart’s final stop on Australia’s Back Roads

She’s been plonked down in an underground cave beneath the Nullabor, hunted buffalo in the Northern Territory, and left viewers’ eyes popping when she jumped off a bridge in Brunswick Heads. Now, the host of ABC’s Back Roads, Heather Ewart, is...