The fate of the federal Queensland seat of Oxley in the 2013 election will provide some clues to the Labor Party’s long term future. If Labor loses Oxley, it is in serious trouble. The seat includes traditional…
Mine operators have proposed nine major new coal mines for the Galilee Basin in central Queensland. Those proposals currently being assessed by the Queensland government could significantly impact water…
Australia has some of the world’s most ancient soils, many of which grow delicious produce. In this series, “The good earth”, soil scientist Robert Edis profiles some of those soils and the flavours they…
Across Australia, the debate over national parks is escalating. This has been triggered by a series of significant changes in the approach to managing parks, with moves to open them to logging, grazing…
In May oil spilled from a well in south-west Queensland owned by Australian oil and gas company Santos. In what may be the state’s third largest spill, more than 250,000 litres of oil flowed from the well…
Queensland farmers are used to dealing with variable seasons, but the long-term shifts of climate change are expected to create new challenges. Queensland farmers already do a good job of managing a variable…
Last week the Queensland parliament passed laws relaxing land clearing and opening up national parks to cattle grazing. Victoria has proposed similar clearing changes. It’s no surprise more clearing is…
Due to a serious drought that has seen one-third of Queensland drought declared, farmers are struggling to feed their cattle. There’s inadequate feed on their own land, feed is hard to source in the marketplace…
Australia is famous for its natural beauty: the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru, Kakadu, the Kimberley. But what about the places almost no one goes? We asked ecologists, biologists and wildlife researchers…
UNESCO, the body that lists world heritage areas, continues to express extreme disquiet about the state of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. But it has now postponed to February 2014 consideration…
Clive Palmer’s China First Coal Project is entering the last stages of review for its proposed coal mine in Queensland’s Bimblebox Nature Refuge. As part of the Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement…
The estuarine crocodile is the top predator in waterways across Northern Australia. Large crocodiles pose a risk to humans, so local governments take measures to control crocodile abundance and distribution…
Back in July last year Queensland Premier Campbell Newman was in a very black mood. All was gloom and doom in the Sunshine State, as he warned Queensland was “on the way to being bankrupted” without tough…
Queensland has a habit of raising the eyebrows of our southern cousins when it comes to politics “our way”. Visits to friends and family down south always have required explanations about Joh Bjelke-Petersen…
The recent tragic death of a young boy from Australian bat lyssavirus (ABL) produced a predictable chorus of calls to disperse flying fox colonies and kill flying foxes, all in the name of public health…
Jon Altman, Australian National University et Seán Kerins, Australian National University
In the 1990s some international animal rights and environment organisations instigated a concerted campaign to stop the hunting of pilot whales by Faroese people living in the northeast Atlantic. The thousand-year-old…
Funding cuts announced to Queensland Aboriginal communities last month will of course affect the budgets of Aboriginal Shire Councils. But their impact will be felt much more further afield than just within…