A dozen staff were furloughed and emergency cubicles were at capacity on the day a man died after waiting more than three hours in the emergency department of a hospital in East Gippsland.

Melbourne Airport had its busiest day in two years last Friday, and Thursday is expected to come a close second. The rush has sparked chaotic scenes at baggage carousels and security check-ins.

The award for a report on a controversial AFL training camp was reinstated after an independent panel recommended the decision to strip him of the honour was flawed.

In 2020, Victoria’s fertility rate fell to just 1.43 babies per woman. Not only was it a record low for the state, it was the lowest rate in the nation.

NSW has pushed back a deadline for certain aged care and disability service workers to have their third COVID-19 vaccine over fears it would slash even more staff from the sector.

Foreign workers will be needed to meet the prime minister’s 1.3 million jobs target, Labor is promising to roll out urgent care clinics and the Greens want Medicare expanded to cover going to the dentist.

The best photos from the international wire agencies as chosen by our picture editors.

Western Australia recorded 7426 new cases overnight, there are now 215 people in hospital and four are in intensive care.

Highway police will be targeting speeding and fatigue as warm weather across most of the state lures thousands of Melburnians to the regions for Easter.

Police allege the 48-year-old man from Meadow Heights tested positive for methamphetamine after the collision.

The activists, who live-streamed the protest, parked the truck on the southbound lane of the bridge that veers off to the eastern suburbs. 

The human remains were discovered at a picnic ground in Melbourne’s north on Tuesday night, and police have now determined the death was not suspicious.

The state government will ease rules for large productions to allow preparations to begin for a return to the stage.

Police allegedly found 3.8 million images related to 24 victims aged between three and 13 on the man’s devices, with detectives describing it as “one of the most significant child abuse investigations ever conducted” in WA.

Vandals beheaded a sculpture of a naked Queen Elizabeth posing near Canberra’s Lake Burley Griffin. The controversial statue sparked a heated debate about freedom of artistic expression and ugly scenes between republicans and monarchists.

Shocking footage of a woman becoming wedged between a Brisbane rail platform and a train has been released in a safety campaign by Queensland Rail.

Police are investigating whether so-called “postcode gangs” played a role in the tragedy, which has been described as a “very organised” attack.

Labor describes it as its “76th seat”: the one it must win to have a chance of forming government. But Gladys Liu is a formidable incumbent.

The woman in her 20s was approached as she walked home from work. Police allege the man punched her several times in the face before strangling and sexually assaulting her.

Police said the death was not being treated as suspicious, and that it would take a significant amount of time to identify the body, which is badly decomposed.

COVID-19 has turbo-charged WA’s housing market, with the average property selling within two weeks and at a price 22 per cent greater than pre-pandemic, according to REIWA.

Christensen was asked whether he was making the move for the $105,000 resettlement allowance given to politicians when they lose their seat.

Disruptive behaviour and poor wellbeing among students have emerged as bigger problems than learning loss in Victorian schools this year.

It’s all work and no play at Australia’s top media outlets as they look for ways to engage an increasingly cynical, politics-fatigued nation in the contest.

The US experience suggests prior coronavirus infection may help to stem a flu season, but local infectious diseases experts “wouldn’t bet on it”.

For the first time there is real contest for the blue ribbon Liberal seat of Goldstein. This is how the battle lines are drawn.

When my partner and I booked our weekend away, I didn’t bank on it being quite so intimate.

For the first time since the project began, two enormous tunnel boring machines are active beneath Yarraville, where they will drill almost seven kilometres of underground road.

WA will on Friday become the only state in Australia still enforcing an indoor mask mandate and just one of two still requiring proof of vaccination and density limits.

What has our democracy come to when we now treat elections as no more than great games of trivia.

One ad is spiritual, the other practical. But the messages Labor and the Coalition are trying to convey are clear.

Native artists exploited, false-teeth robbery, and a tax on Raisin Joe

90 years ago, a massive manhunt was underway after the discovery of a brutal double-murder in bushland in Sydney’s south-west.

Trivia buffs: test your knowledge with today’s interactive superquiz and target.

Scott Morrison will today promise to create 1.3 million jobs over the next five years, Anthony Albanese will make mental health his priority and the Greens have dismissed the Labor leader’s recent economic gaffe.

Crickets on drums and Seattle’s subterranean delights.

Pandemic fatigue could leave us vulnerable to a resurgence of the flu this year, experts warn.

“If we can’t have social housing on publicly owned sites, where are we going to have it?” remarked Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore at a council meeting.

For decades the Liberal Party has traded on the idea that it is the party of lower interest rates, lower taxes, lower unemployment, tighter budgets and stronger economic growth. But is it true?

Uati Faletolu, 17, who was working as a ride attendant at the Easter Show, had met up with two other teens before the trio became involved in an altercation with another group.

Airport workers who are close contacts of COVID-19 cases do not need to isolate, as delays persist at Melbourne Airport ahead of its busiest Easter in two years.

Regional doctors warn they are increasingly having to treat people in corridors and struggling to find intensive care beds for the most critically ill.

The experts at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine say some victims of Russian soldiers still had their hands tied behind their backs and their T-shirts pulled up consistent with them being used to cover their faces.

A Sydney teenager was found buried in the Blue Mountains with his wrists and ankles bound by tape and possible defensive injuries, a court has heard.

A shortage of security staff has caused the airport to be plagued by long queues at security and passengers to complain about waiting for several hours to board flights.

Chris Dawson’s lawyers told the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday they would apply for his murder trial next month to be heard by a judge alone.

Sixty years ago, the Southern Aurora arrived at Spencer Street Station on its first Sydney to Melbourne run. The Age’s reporter was onboard for the historic occasion.

In what was described as a “deeply disappointing outcome”, the High Court decided on Tuesday not to grant the flood victims special leave to continue their case.

The state government will distribute 200,000 additional free rapid antigen tests at regional community resource centres from April 18.

In a statement filed in court, Barb and Ted Grimley say “Melissa dishonestly and fraudulently” took $1.2m they gave her to acquire a stake in an Edgecliff flat.