A British tourist who was acquitted of assaulting Australia’s former Rugby Sevens captain James Stannard has won a defamation case against a TV network. Sam Oliver, from Newcastle, said Australia’s Nine Network had wrongly depicted him as being guilty of a “cowardly” criminal act in Sydney. He was found not guilty last year. On Friday, […]

Australians will vote in a general election on 18 May, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced. The poll will decide whether the conservative government wins a third term or is replaced by a Labor administration led by Bill Shorten. All 151 seats in the House of Representatives will be contested, and half of the 76 […]

Over 1953, they moved in their tens of thousands, leaving war-torn Europe for Australia in pursuit of a better life. Among them was Joseph Bertony. Despite being only 31 at the time, the engineer had already lived through a lot. After joining the French Navy, Bertony had been recruited as a spy for the Allied […]

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This week’s issue is written by Damien Cave, our bureau chief, and a former religion editor for The New York Times. ___ A few days after the Christchurch attacks, I found myself writing a story in a […]

Farmers across eastern Australia are enduring what some have called the worst drought in living memory. On Wednesday, the entire state of New South Wales (NSW) was declared to be drought-affected. It is the same situation in more than half of neighbouring Queensland. Many farmers say they are struggling just to keep going, with little […]

A homeless man in Sydney, Australia, has been reunited with his pet rat which disappeared earlier this month. Chris, 59, is a well known figure in downtown Sydney where the rat, called Lucy, is usually curled up on a box in front of him. But one day his little companion disappeared as he stepped away […]

Australia has acquired a reputation for rapidly changing prime ministers: five times in the past nine years. Yet it could soon have another if Bill Shorten’s Labor Party wins an election on 18 May. Mr Shorten, 51, is hoping his centre-left party can unseat Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative government. Widely viewed as an archetypal […]

Horses killed more people in Australia in recent years than all venomous animals combined, research has shown. The University of Melbourne’s Dr Ronelle Welton examined hospital admissions data and coronial records. From 2000 to 2013, horses were responsible for 74 deaths. Bees and other stinging insects were the next most dangerous, causing 27 deaths, followed […]

They were sex abuse allegations that rocked the Catholic Church and generated enormous interest – only for the case to vanish suddenly from public view for nine months. The trial and conviction of Cardinal George Pell can now be reported after an Australian judge lifted a legal order that had prohibited coverage. The sweeping ban, […]

Four men have been injured, two critically, in a shooting outside a nightclub in the Australian city of Melbourne. The incident at the Love Machine venue is not thought to be terror related. Australian newspaper The Age said investigators are likely to examine links to a motorcycle gang. Mass shootings in Australia are rare. The […]