Bomb squad sweeps, police combing through CCTV footage and a city in a state of concern. You’d be forgiven for thinking this is a description of what’s taking place in Sydney following the deadliest alleged terror attack in Australian history. But it’s not. The long shadow of the Bondi shooting that killed 15 people has also darkened the coastal southern …

Summer has opened with extreme variability across Australia, with widespread hot conditions in Western Australia and extreme cold in the south-east of the country challenging early summer records across several states. In WA, Perth’s temperatures soared to 39 degrees Celsius on Monday, marking the city’s hottest start to summer on record, with temperatures still climbing. The city was one of …

Housing prices continue to climb across the country but the pace of growth is easing slightly as the Sydney and Melbourne markets lag the mid-sized capital cities. Cotality’s monthly Home Value Index increased 1 per cent nationally in November, the third month in a row of values rising by 1 per cent or more. However, it was a slight slowdown …

The two months preceding a wedding are notoriously hazardous. Many micro-disasters can cause distress. The bomboniere are unsatisfactory. The chair-hire guy turns out to be a scoundrel. The string quartet contains a drunkard. Numpty cousin X is actually planning to attend despite everyone’s assumption that she wouldn’t. Something unspeakable occurs at the stag do. These are the ordinary hiccups that …

Former Australian National University (ANU) vice-chancellor Professor Genevieve Bell received a severance payout of more than $400,000 after she resigned from the role in September, new documents have revealed. The sum included more than $362,000 in taxable income plus nearly $62,000 in superannuation. Professor Bell resigned from the top job less than two years into her tenure, following months of …

Australia’s foreign minister has used a major speech in Canberra to celebrate the government’s string of new security agreements, saying Labor has helped to build a region which is more stable and less deferential to authoritarian powers like Russia and China. The government has been buoyed by multiple foreign policy victories this year. It was crowned by last week’s announcement …

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley says she can “guarantee” voters that she will lead the Coalition into the next federal election during an appearance on 7.30, where she also said the Coalition had no plans to fund new coal-fired power stations. Ms Ley’s leadership has been under threat in recent weeks as the Liberal Party dropped its commitment to net zero …

Inflation has jumped to 3.2% in the year to September, from 2.1% in June, as waning government subsidies feed through to a spike in household power bills. Any lingering chance of a rate cut next Tuesday – or potentially this year – was squashed after the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures also confirmed the first rise in underlying inflation in …

US President Donald Trump has touched down in Malaysia ahead of the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Kuala Lumpur. Mr Trump’s visit to Asia comes at a time when both his protectionist agenda and foreign policy have cast a significant shadow over the region. The ASEAN grouping, now a bloc of 11 countries in …

Warning: This story contains graphic content. An alleged “kill crew” charged with the kidnap and murder of an organised crime network member’s wife in Sydney sent a picture of the woman to her husband before killing her, police claim. Thi Kim Tran, 45, was at her home in Bankstown about 10.30pm on April 17 when a group of men allegedly …