More than four decades since they were penned, the Palace letters — dubbed the missing link in Australia’s political history — have been released. And while they may reveal the Queen was unaware of then governor-general Sir John Kerr’s decision to sack the Whitlam government in 1975, they also provide an invaluable insight into some of the more eccentric discussions unfolding …

Australian Federal Police have released details of a major investigation into an alleged child sex abuse network that operated across three states. Police said 40 charges had been laid and nine men arrested in relation to child abuse that was filmed, photographed and shared online. The operation began in February after a tip-off from US authorities. At least 14 children …

Val Kilmer admits in his new book I’m Your Huckleberry that he had a crush on Angelina Jolie before they co-starred in the 2004 epic Alexander. And when they were on set together he ‘couldn’t wait to kiss her.’ The Top Gun went on to say that he also wanted to ‘buy her a Gulfstream jet and have V+J painted …

NSW Police Minister David Elliott has assured domestic violence victims they will still be able to access essential services during the coronavirus outbreak. There has been no recorded increase in domestic violence incidents so far, but authorities have concerns about potential victims being trapped in houses with their alleged abusers. “All the ingredients for a tinderbox situation are there. We’ve seen a …

It always pays to read the fine print. Last month’s report by the Australian National Audit Office into the now notorious sports grants scheme wasn’t happy reading for the Government. But there was one line the Prime Minister latched onto. It was a line in the opening “summary and recommendations” section, a mere nine pages in. “No applications assessed as …

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has accused a “toxic, climate-denying alliance of right-wing politics”, the Murdoch media and the coal industry of hijacking Australia’s climate debate. In a damning essay written for US publication Time magazine, Mr Turnbull said that while climate change was a simple matter of physics, Australian politics had made it a matter of ideology. “In Australia, as in the US, this …

Police have arrested two people who allegedly twice broke into a fire-damaged business on the NSW south coast to steal electrical goods. Electrical items were seized on Friday afternoon after two homes were raided following reports of looting during the bushfire crisis in the region, NSW Police said. A 38-year-old man was arrested in Tilba Tilba and a 31-year-old woman …

The Kurds in Syria say the Syrian government has agreed to send its army to the northern border to try to halt Turkey’s offensive against them. Syrian state media earlier reported that government forces had been deployed to the north. It follows the US decision to pull all its remaining troops from the area over the “untenable” situation there. The …

WhatsApp messenger users are urged to upgrade the app and their operating systems after hackers were able to exploit a flaw in the platform to remotely install surveillance software on phones using it. After discovering the flaw, platform owner Facebook released its fix this week. All the hackers had to do to get into the app was to call it …

celand has more than quadrupled the number of annual foreign visitors that arrive on its shores in just six years. Last year the island, a three-hour flight from the UK, counted 2.1 million tourists through its doors, a figure it had not anticipated reaching until 2020. In 2010 just 459,000 people visited Iceland. The unchecked growth in the number of …