Deputy Nationals leader Bridget McKenzie is facing calls to resign amid revelations a Federal Government pre-election cash splash was biased towards seats the Coalition wanted to win. A scathing audit report found a disproportionate number of grants were funnelled towards seats then-sports minister Senator McKenzie’s office had earmarked as “marginal” and “targeted” before last year’s federal election. The Coledale Waves …

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 …

A Turkish private jet operator says ex-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn used two of its planes illegally in his escape from Japan, with an employee falsifying lease records to exclude his name from the documents. MNG Jet said it had filed a criminal complaint over the incident, a day after Turkish police detained seven people, including four pilots, as part of …

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been confronted by angry protesters in the bushfire-hit town of Cobargo in New South Wales. Two people died near the Bega Valley town when it was hit by a raging bushfire early on New Year’s Eve. Visiting the town on Thursday to meet emergency services workers and offer his support to bushfire victims, the PM found …

A volunteer firefighter has died and two others have been injured while working on a fire burning near Albury, the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) has confirmed. The RFS said the three firefighters were the same truck working on a blaze near Jingellic, near the Victorian border, when it rolled over after being hit by extreme winds. One firefighter was …

A well-known Queensland snake catcher has been released from hospital after being bitten by an eastern brown snake at a house south of Brisbane. Tony Harrison was live-streaming on Facebook on Saturday when he was bitten by a brown snake which was hiding under an air conditioning unit outside the home in Pimpama. The video shows the snake striking at …

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 …

Donald Trump has become the third US president in history to be impeached by the House of Representatives, setting up a trial in the Senate that will decide whether he remains in office. The House voted on two charges – that the president abused his power and that he had obstructed Congress. Both votes fell along party lines with nearly …

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 …

A heavily pregnant Muslim woman who was repeatedly punched and stomped on during a suspected racially motivated attack in a western Sydney cafe says she “fears for the world our children will grow up in”. NSW Police said Rana Elasmar, 31, who was 38 weeks pregnant, was with her friends at a Parramatta cafe on Wednesday night when a 43-year-old …