Drivers who are caught throwing cigarettes out their car windows will be slapped with 10 demerit points and fined $11,000 under new laws in New South Wales. The laws, announced on Thursday, will apply during total fire bans. When there isn’t a total fire ban, drivers who toss lit cigarettes will be hit with five demerit points. Passengers caught chucking …

As a catastrophic bushfire emergency unfolded across three states on Saturday with lives lost, homes destroyed and Christmas holiday plans for thousands of people in chaos, Prime Minister Scott Morrison is set to fly back into Sydney on Saturday night. Amid mounting pressure to return home, cutting a family holiday in Hawaii short and issuing a statement he “deeply regretted” …

A tight-knit western Sydney volunteer firefighting brigade has been devastated after two firefighters were killed in the battle to contain a blaze that ripped through villages southwest of the city. Geoffrey Keaton, 32, and Andrew O’Dwyer, 36, from the Horsley Park brigade, were in a truck convoy near the town of Buxton late on Thursday when a tree fell into …

A teenager whose family home was destroyed in bushfires has delivered an impassioned plea to the Prime Minister to take action on climate change, saying “thoughts and prayers are not enough”. Shiann Broderick, 18, who lost her home in Nymboida in northern NSW, gathered along with about 500 protesters outside Liberal Party headquarters in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Woolloomooloo. …

Indigenous leaders have filed an unprecedented compensation claim against the West Australian Government that could become one of the world’s biggest legal payouts. Noongar people of south-west WA are pursuing more than $290 billion for “spiritual damage” caused by loss of their traditional land. The figure would be almost a quarter of Australia’s gross domestic product of $1.4 trillion and …

When all is said and done, the only thing of value any of us have is our reputation. For years, Westpac chief Brian Hartzer and his chairman Lindsay Maxsted have been handsomely rewarded for their stewardship of one of the country’s biggest financial institutions. Along the way, they’ve been elevated to pillars of society. That now counts for nought. Community …

The affair of the alleged Chinese spy seeking asylum in Australia has grown even murkier, with Beijing saying he is nothing but a confidence trickster and common criminal Nine newspapers reported on Saturday that Wang “William” Liqiang has provided Australia’s counter-espionage agency ASIO details of how China’s senior military intelligence officers fund and conduct political interference operations in Hong Kong, …

A Perth man who defrauded Centrelink of more than $110,000 while running a multi-million-dollar shopping trolley collection business has been sentenced to three years’ jail. Ali Ayad, 49, received Newstart payments and carer allowance between May 2010 and December 2017 while he was operating the business, which had a turnover of almost $3.6 million. The District Court was told most …

The Chinese embassy in Canberra has hit back at Australian media reports of a man who says he worked as a secret Chinese operative for five years, saying he is a convicted fraudster. Wang Liqiang told Nine Newspapers he was seeking asylum in Australia, and was willing to detail his operations working as an intelligence agent for the Communist Party. …

An Adelaide woman acquitted of terror offences will be forced to comply with a series of controls over her movements and behaviour. Zainab Abdirahman-Khalif, 24, was found guilty of being a member of the Islamic State terror group following a jury trial last year. But the verdict was set aside and she was acquitted in a Court of Criminal Appeal …