Despite what South Australia might say, far north Queensland is the perfect launching pad for Australia's new space agency. It's just science.

One of Australia's most senior energy advisers has pleaded with the Turnbull government to end its paralysis over a clean energy target.

Of the seven federal MPs hauled before the High Court over their citizenship status only One Nation's Malcolm Roberts and Greens senator Scott Ludlam were wrongfully elected, the Commonwealth contends.

The living standards of low-paid workers were not taken into account by the industrial umpire when it decided to slash penalty rates, the hospitality workers' union has told the Federal Court.

Will a Queensland hotelier who got just 19 votes at last year's federal election be the nation's next senator?

The Turnbull government has clawed back $4 billion from the budget deficit by making billions of dollars less in payments to people on social welfare and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and to the immigration detention system.

"It is love and it is valuable, but it's not, and it can't be, the kind of love that we call marriage."

Acting Queensland Premier Curtis Pitt has cautioned the federal government against capping gas exports, as concerns over local supplies deepen.

Barnaby Joyce has been accused of a conflict of interest due to claims he could personally benefit from the Turnbull government's push to develop coal seam gas.

• COMMENT

Exporters have shipped a lot of extra gas overseas in addition to the gas they were contractually obliged to export.

A train carriage was scrawled with obscene graffiti and rocks were thrown into a home flying rainbow flags.

The federal government has announced the creation of a National Space Agency.

The Taliban in the Afghanistan province where Australians fought and died have forced the shutdown of dozens of health clinics.

The Berejiklian government has comprehensively failed to develop enough gas reserves to help Australia head off grave shortages and keep power bills low, according to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

The looming gas crisis is three times worse than previously thought, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says, ordering gas giants and state governments to shore up gas supplies to east coast consumers or face strict export limits.

The Equality Campaign says the text messages it blasted out across Australia over the weekend drove 170,000 people to click through and seek information on the same-sex marriage postal survey.

A Canberra man who caused an explosion outside the Australian Christian Lobby offices has died by suicide.

• ANALYSIS

Malcolm Turnbull needs a lot to go right between now and the end of the year, if he is to maximise his slim chances of recovery through 2018.

• EXCLUSIVE

The recent case of a terrorist bomb kit allegedly being airmailed from Turkey to Sydney has prompted a major rethink of border security, a top official has said

• EXCLUSIVE

The Turnbull government has developed detailed plans to manage the return of as many as 70 children of Australian foreign fighters who may come home from the Middle East.

Australia will fall dramatically short of its Paris carbon reduction targets signed under Tony Abbott, unless it vastly increases its renewable energy usage to levels even higher than Labor's plan for 50 per cent renewables by 2030. The first assessment by the Australia Institute's Climate and Energy Program has found that unless the government wants to place a higher burden on other sectors of the economy - in particular, agriculture, transport and industrial manufacturing - then the electricity sector will need a renewable energy target of at least 66 per cent by 2030, and as high as 75 per cent. Assuming the government were to favour the least-cost option, that calls for a reduction in carbon emissions from energy of 40 to 55 per cent in the next dozen years.

Refugees have left one of Australia's offshore detention centres on Sunday for the United States

Barely one in five voters surveyed want to see the Liddell power station's life extended, a poll has found.

The mayor of the newly formed Inner West council will move to have free weddings for all same-sex couples in the suburbs under his control should gay marriage be legalised later this year.

• EXCLUSIVE

A little-known visa category facing accusations of systematic abuse needs to be urgently safeguarded by Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, the Labor Party has said, expressing concern that subclass 400 visas are being used as a "back door" to undermine the government's foreign labour crackdown.

"Politicians don't recognise that the tipping point is on its way - I do," the outspoken MP told a Melbourne book launch.

• EXCLUSIVE

Exclusive: Turnbull government reveals it is working on a "joint action plan" on climate change as part of their commitments under the Paris agreement.

Chinese government will curb supplies of refined petroleum products to the rogue state from October.

Aarthi Ayyar-Biddle is a "bit sceptical" about the Turnbull government's plans to introduce a national test for kids in their second year of schooling.