Police in NSW will soon be equipped with body cameras – as will their counterparts on Queensland’s Gold Coast in domestic violence incidents.
AAP/Andi Yu
Police-worn body cameras could be a helpful tool for law enforcement in cases involving domestic violence. But they could also have unintended consequences.
The Turnbull government’s package of measures to respond to domestic violence is a step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done.
AAP/Julian Smith
Matthew Condon’s new book, All Fall Down, ends Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis’ story amid the demise of the Rat Pack and their corrupt system of graft payments known as “The Joke”.
Nitrogen pollution is one of the factors driving outbreaks of crown-of-thorns - giant starfish that devour the reef.
Kenneth Taylor Jr/Flickr
The latest Great Barrier Reef report shows some improvements to water quality over the past five years, but there’s still a lot to do on one particular problem: nitrogen.
Tinkering with the law is likely to entrench positions on both sides of the ‘green tape’ debate.
AAP Image/Supplied
Both industry and environmental groups need more certainty over the government’s approvals process. But the recent hectic rhetoric has given them less certainty - and that could be bad for both sides.
Independent oversight will be a crucial new ingredient in the Queensland government’s vow for stronger domestic violence action.
Dan Peled/AAP
We’ve heard promises to act on domestic violence too often before. But a new Queensland plan offers public accountability measures – which could finally turn rhetoric into real action.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (left) and Queensland Treasurer Curtis Pitt (centre) prior to the Queensland Budget being delivered in State Parliament in Brisbane.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
Giving people the right to ask about their partner’s history of domestic violence sounds like a good idea – but there are good reasons why Rosie Batty and others have raised concerns.
Are authorities too focused on the usual suspects and missing the new and emerging markets in organised crime?
AAP/Adam Marsters
Today’s organised crime occurs through loose and undefined networks made up of criminal entrepreneurs and freelancers with little concern for group branding or loyalty.
The Curtis Island gas precinct is one of the biggest developments along the Great Barrier Reef coast.
AAP Image/Greenpeace
The coast alongside the Great Barrier Reef is home to ports, farms, holiday resorts, and more than a million people. It all puts pressure on the Reef, and it’s time for some firms plans to manage it.
The white-lipped tree frog, one of the species threatened by warming.
Stephen Williams
Climate change is one of the biggest threats to the world’s wildlife, but recent projects provide hope that we’ll be able to help species adapt.
Research by James Cook University was rapidly translated into policy that is helping to preserve Queensland’s regions against the effects of climate change.
Nathan Siemers/Flickr
It’s rare for research to have an immediate impact on policy, but lessons learnt from a successful venture in Queensland can show how it can be done.
The MV Shen Neng I spills oil onto the Great Barrier Reef in 2010. Large accidents are rare, but there is still very little monitoring of long-term chronic damage from shipping.
AAP Image/AMSA
Port traffic near the Great Barrier Reef will more than double by 2025, as coal and other exports grow. While major incidents are rare, the chronic toll on the reef itself still remains largely unknown.
Man in the middle: former Labor MP turned independent Billy Gordon (centre) is now one of three crucial cross-bench MPs in the Queensland parliament.
Dan Peled/AAP
A new WWF report highlights Australia as a hotspot for future deforestation. Australia talks the talk on deforestation, but will it walk the walk?
Senior Queensland Police at the 2014 launch of the Stay on Track Outback road safety project, sponsored by Santos, Izuzu and others.
Queensland Police Service
The Queensland Police will now disclose all sponsorships, after a backlash over almost A$700,000 in unnamed donations. But what are the lessons from elsewhere about police and corporate donors?
Queensland’s reliance on high-security facilities to house a growing prison population may be linked to the nation’s highest rates of return for prisoners on parole.
AAP/Dave Hunt
Queensland’s rates of imprisonment had been falling, but have undergone a sharp reversal - much of it driven by the nation’s highest rates of return by prisoners released into the community.
Rangers have mostly killed young male dingoes on Fraser Island, new research shows.
Jane Drumsara/Flickr
The famous dingoes of Fraser Island are not threatened by the practice of culling dangerous dingoes, says new research which shows the numbers killed are too small to harm the population’s sustainability.
Water from coal seam gas mining would be treated at a reverse osmosis plant before being re-injected into the ground.
CSIRO
The Queensland government wants companies to use waste water from coal seam gas extraction for useful purposes such as recharging aquifers. New CSIRO research shows that, with careful monitoring, it can be done.