Category Archives: South Australia

Sydney reaches 33C in potentially warmest start to spring since mid-1800s, while snow forecast in southern NSW

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A total fire ban is in place for greater Sydney with extreme fire danger exacerbated by hot and windy conditions

Summer heat is due to arrive early across much of eastern Australia with potentially record early September temperatures predicted for Brisbane and Sydney, while snow was expected in southern New South Wales.

Maximum temperatures in Sydney during the first days of September were on track to match the city’s midsummer average of 26.4C, warmer than any other start to spring since the city’s Observatory Hill station opened in 1858.

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Dolphin dies from H5 bird flu in SA as researchers withdrawn from sub-Antarctic island over ‘psychosocial risk’

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Australian government announces 24 expeditioners based at research station on Macquarie Island will be evacuated over possible ‘prolonged psychological stress’

A dolphin has died from H5 bird flu in South Australia, marking the second native mammal species known to have contracted the virus.

It comes as the federal government announced it would withdraw researchers from the sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island research station due to the “psychosocial risk” of witnessing potential mass seal deaths from H5N1 during the upcoming seal breeding season.

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Australia has just 12,000 sea lions left – and ‘carnage’ may await them as bird flu takes hold, scientists warn

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Virus has already caused catastrophic losses in pinnipeds in South America and sub-Antarctica, particularly among pups

Scientists have warned deadly H5 bird flu could cause “carnage” for Australia’s seal and sea lion populations after detection of the virus in long-nosed fur seals in South Australia.

SA confirmed Australia’s first case in a mammal on Saturday after a dead long-nosed fur seal found at Beachport on the Limestone Coast tested positive for H5N1.

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‘We expected it, but now it’s here’: on the frontline of Australia’s bird flu outbreak, people are distressed

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As Australia prepares for the H5 bird flu to potentially rip through hundreds of species, residents of the Limestone Coast are already seeing the impacts

It has only been three weeks since H5 bird flu was detected on South Australia’s Limestone Coast and already encounters with sick or dead birds are becoming commonplace.

Maureen Christie, who lives in the seaside town of Carpenter Rocks, has been observing and protecting birds in the region for decades. She is now witnessing many stricken and suffering.

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Baby missing after mother and toddler found dead off coast of South Australia

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Emergency services pulled the bodies from the ocean at Port Macdonnell amid ‘grave concerns’ for second child

A baby is missing off the coast of South Australia after the bodies of a mother and her toddler were pulled from the ocean.

Emergency services were called to the state’s southernmost coastal town, Port Macdonnell, at about 11.15am on Monday after a car was found with its engine running.

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How will Australia’s emergency services cope if satellites go down? With a sextant and a street directory

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Military and SES personnel being taught analog communication and navigation techniques as experts warn solar flare could knock out ‘critical space infrastructure’

Australia’s emergency services and military personnel are being trained to read paper maps, navigate without GPS support and sail by the stars in case something knocks out the nation’s space capabilities.

A panel at the 19th Australian Space Forum in Adelaide on Wednesday was asked to consider what would happen “if we suddenly lost access to critical space infrastructure – no satellites, no GPS, no remote sensing, no secure communications?”

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Cyclist Rohan Dennis pleads guilty to driving with suspended licence after crash that killed wife

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Adelaide-based Olympian was banned from driving for five years over Melissa Hoskins’ 2023 death

Former professional cyclist Rohan Dennis faces a jail sentence after admitting he drove while disqualified over the events leading up to the death of his Olympian wife, Melissa Hoskins.

A judge had previously warned the former Olympian he would be jailed if he drove while banned.

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School in remote SA Indigenous community on list of places where accused paedophile worked

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Police investigating Hamish Tait – who faces 329 child abuse charges – have released list of 55 locations where he worked or attended

A federal police investigation into an accused paedophile facing more than 300 child abuse charges has expanded to a remote community in South Australia.

Hamish Tait, 35, faces 329 charges of child abuse between 2009 and 2025 while working across 62 centres.

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Dolphin deaths in South Australia spike after algal bloom decimates food sources

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The March 2025 marine disaster may be linked to a high number of dolphin deaths in the region, scientists say

The number of dead dolphins washing up on South Australian beaches spiked in 2025, according to long-term data that reveals mortalities during the state’s devastating algal bloom were the highest in 12 years.

Last year, at least 70 carcasses of common and bottlenose dolphins were found across South Australia, with a further 20 reported in 2026, including the recent death of a popular Port River dolphin known as Zoom.

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Taylor defends Sarah Henderson’s triple-zero calls amid questions about claimed Telstra-outage death in SA

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South Australian police say they’re unaware of death despite claim by Liberal senator Kerrynne Liddle

Angus Taylor says his shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson was “doing her job” when she “tested” the triple-zero system by making unnecessary calls to it during Telstra’s nationwide outage.

The opposition leader has also dismissed concerns about Liberal senator Kerrynne Liddle’s claim that an elderly person died as a result of the outage, after South Australian police said they were unaware of any such death.

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‘Significant’ storm to hammer millions in WA and bring icy weather to NSW, Victoria and SA

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Bureau of Meteorology says WA residents should brace for wind gusts higher than 125km/h – the strength of category two cyclones

A major storm system bearing down on millions of Western Australians on Saturday is bringing cyclone-strength winds, and is set to deliver a “wintry blast” to the east of the country early next week.

Residents across WA’s populated south-west were warned to tie down loose items and prepare for destructive wind gusts that could exceed 125km/h from Saturday evening.

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Record-breaking May warmth soon to blow away as cold front moves towards eastern Australia

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Daytime temperatures on Friday were 10 to 14C above average in four states

Record-breaking warm temperatures for the start of May in many parts of the country will be washed out by a cold front bringing rain, thunderstorms and much cooler weather.

A high-pressure system dragged warm northerly winds across south-east Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said.

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Cory Bernardi repays more than $40,000 for flying on Gina Rinehart’s plane during SA election campaign

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Former Liberal party senator, who was elected to state upper house in March, says flights ‘worth every cent’

One Nation’s South Australian leader has paid back Australia’s richest person for private flights he took while campaigning in the state’s recent election.

Cory Bernardi confirmed on Saturday that he had reimbursed a “substantial” sum of money to Gina Rinehart’s company S Kidman & Co, to comply with new state laws that prohibit political parties and candidates from receiving electoral donations or gifts from individuals, businesses or unions.

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Mouse plague hits WA grain farmers as numbers surge in SA: ‘You literally can’t get away from them’

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CSIRO researcher says there are reports of up to 4,000 mouse burrows per hectare in parts of Western Australia

Grain growers are on high alert as mouse numbers in Western Australia reach plague proportions and numbers surge in South Australia.

Steve Henry, who researches mice and their impact on the grain industry at CSIRO, says more than 800 mice per hectare is considered a plague.

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Olympic cyclist Rohan Dennis says he never wanted to hurt wife Melissa Hoskins and attacks media’s ‘false narrative’

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Dennis, whose car fatally struck Hoskins in 2023, wrote on Instagram ‘I have ALWAYS been against any sort of abuse against women’

The Olympic cyclist Rohan Dennis has lashed out at journalists on social media, saying they created a “false narrative” about him after his wife’s 2023 death.

“The narrative which the media ran with was clear,” the former professional cyclist wrote on Instagram late on Monday night. “They wanted me to look like the husband who abused his wife.”

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‘I just legged it’: teenage shark bite victim recalls lucky escape while surfing in South Australia

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Oliver Tokic-Bensley, 16, says he had been in the water mere minutes when a shark bit his foot

A teenage surfer bitten by a shark at a South Australian beach has described how he “flicked it off” and “legged it back to shore”.

Oliver Tokic-Bensley, 16, was bitten on his foot while surfing on Good Friday near his family beach house at Middleton, 80km south of Adelaide.

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Man’s body found after being swept away in outback flood waters

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Three-day search effort ends after 65-year-old disappeared near Innamincka in remote north-eastern South Australia on Easter Saturday

Police have found the body of a 65-year-old man who was swept into flood waters in South Australia’s far north.

The man – identified only as Tony by South Australia police – disappeared about 12.30pm on Saturday, sparking a three-day search effort.

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One Nation wins at least one SA seat as Liberals consider ‘sobering lessons’ from election defeat

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Labor’s Peter Malinauskas secures at least 32 seats while Pauline Hanson’s party outpolls Liberals and could become de facto opposition

One Nation will win at least one South Australian lower house seat, and is leading in a handful of others, as the Liberals consider “sobering lessons” from Saturday’s thumping election loss to Labor.

One Nation’s electoral success came as federal MP Barnaby Joyce downplayed racism and bigotry accusations against the party before likening a ban on migration from Muslim countries to buying cattle “that just don’t work”.

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SA Liberals dump candidate who said homosexuality ‘opens up demonic realms’ after initially standing by him

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Party leader Ashton Hurn confirms Carston Woodhouse will not run for Liberals in SA’s state election, but says ‘people are entitled to have their views’

A Liberal candidate in South Australia’s upcoming state election has been dumped after his “shocking and extreme” views on abortion, same-sex marriage, gender transitioning and feminism were aired by his Labor rival.

The leader of the SA Liberals, Ashton Hurn, on Wednesday stood by Carston Woodhouse, who had been running for the seat of Wright in Adelaide’s north, after his appearances on the evangelical Christian podcast ElijahFire surfaced.

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SA Liberals dump candidate who said homosexuality ‘opens up demonic realms’ after initially standing by him

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Party leader Ashton Hurn confirms Carston Woodhouse will not run for Liberals in SA’s state election, but says ‘people are entitled to have their views’

A Liberal candidate in South Australia’s upcoming state election has been dumped after his “shocking and extreme” views on abortion, same-sex marriage, gender transitioning and feminism were aired by his Labor rival.

The leader of the SA Liberals, Ashton Hurn, on Wednesday stood by Carston Woodhouse, who had been running for the seat of Wright in Adelaide’s north, after his appearances on the evangelical Christian podcast ElijahFire surfaced.

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