US Vice-President Mike Pence is not expected to use his Australian visit to raise new objections to the controversial asylum-seeker deal that infuriated President Donald Trump, White House officials have said.

Refugees have challenged Turnbull government claims that shots fired during an outbreak of violence at the Manus Island detention centre were discharged by PNG military personnel into the air.

The names behind some of Australia's biggest and most famous movie productions are warning the nation's film and television industry stands at a crossroads.

Australians like to think of themselves as classless but the gap between rich and poor is more pronounced than ever.

Violence erupted when a local tried to shut down a soccer game involving detainees.

After a long and steady decline, Australia's road toll is suddenly on the rise.

The next advances in automation won't just affect the low-skilled and low-paid.

"Bat poo crazy". "Talking BS". "Doing what ISIS wants". Government MPs are escalating their attacks.

Former foreign affairs minister Gareth Evans has launched a scathing attack on Donald Trump.

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Australia has raised concerns with the Kremlin over reports men had been rounded up, tortured and killed as part of an anti-gay crackdown in the semi-autonomous Russian province of Chechnya.

Barnaby Joyce has been called "irresponsible" after he dismissed wetlands adjoining Adani's Abbot Point coal port as little more than a "duck-shooting pond".

Two Australian children are spending Easter under guard as officials work to deport their Fijian parents.

The federal government is expected to kill off a proposal to allow first home buyers to use their superannuation to buy a house, with cabinet ministers lining up behind Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to pan the idea.

One third of new mortgage owners have less than a month's buffer against financial instability, the Reserve Bank has warned.

Acting Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce suggested the Qld Premier and her deputy spent too much time giving press conferences instead of properly completing critical paperwork.

Top tax men sweating on their Easter tech re-boot.

The OECD has listed Australia as among the countries recording the biggest declines in aid for the world's poorest.

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Conservationists renew warnings about destruction of the onshore environment and Great Barrier Reef.

Malcolm Turnbull says the entire world is concerned about the rogue nation's threats of nuclear war.

Cabinet's budget razor gang will examine a range of housing affordability measures on Thursday.

Turnbull government warned that containing the effects of climate change must form a central pillar of Australia's new foreign policy.

The so-called Apex gang is effectively dead, and was never a predominantly foreign or ethnic group of offenders, according to Victoria Police.

Federal Labor is standing firm in opposition to a $900 million government loan for Adani's Carmichael coal mine project in central Queensland, rejecting claims the money is necessary for the mine to go ahead.

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Students at Australia's most prestigious universities are less satisfied with their educational experience.

Australia is more exposed to the economy of a single nation - China - than at any time since the 1950s, when Britain was our major trading partner.

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The Turnbull government's powerful budget razor gang is set to consider a reform package for the $10 billion PBS.

The tax on an Australian family earning $82,000 a year has risen to the second highest rate in the developed world, figures from the OECD show.

Federal funding has been stripped from two of Australia's largest private colleges.

Australia's most prestigious university has become the centre of a pro-Assad academic movement.