Mal Meninga maintains he was not intoxicated and was acting responsibility when he was asked to leave a Brisbane bar on Wednesday morning.

A South Australian Parliamentary inquiry will evaluate the response to a bushfire in May that burnt through hundreds of hectares of the Adelaide hills.

Opposition frontbencher David Ridgway moved a parliamentary motion recently to extend the terms of reference for the Community Safety and Emergency Services Select Committee to investigate the bushfire in the Cherryville and Basket Range area.

Greens MLC Tammy Franks supported the motion to help it pass in the Upper House.

An unwanted visitor from the west has prompted environmental concern on Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.

NSW Opposition Leader John Robertson will use his budget reply speech today to argue that State Government cuts to TAFE and skills training will undermine ambitions to build major infrastructure.

A man has been charged with several offences after allegedly sexually assaulting and stabbing a woman, then attacking a police officer on Sydney's lower north shore.

The Egyptian asylum seeker at the centre of a political slanging match says he is innocent of all charges listed on his Interpol red notice.

Sayed Adbel Latif was branded a "convicted jihadist terrorist" by the Federal Opposition after it emerged that he had been held in low-security detention despite being the subject of an alert from the international police service, which said he had been convicted of murder and terrorism offences in his home country.

Interpol later removed the murder conviction and firearm charges from its notice on Mr Abdel Latif, but still listed him as having been convicted of belonging to a banned terrorist organisation.

In a letter to The Guardian Australia, written from Villawood detention centre, Mr Abdel Latif said Interpol's decision to withdraw the most serious charges was the "first step" in proving his innocence, and said evidence used against him had been extracted by torture.

A gun missing from an Adelaide firing range has been linked with a Finks bikie, as part of court proceedings.

The New South Wales Health Department is urging parents to be on the lookout for symptoms of a rare virus, that has been linked to the death of a child.

Labor frontbencher Craig Emerson says he is confident Julia Gillard will still be Prime Minister by the time she travels to Indonesia for talks with president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono next month.

Last night Ms Gillard announced she would be travelling to Jakarta for annual talks with Mr Yudhoyono, who is due to step down next year.

However, her plan to travel overseas follows weeks of intense speculation over the leadership and whether Kevin Rudd could take over as prime minister before the September 14 election.

Last night both Ms Gillard and Mr Rudd were in attendance as politicians and media turned out in force for Canberra's annual charity Midwinter Ball.

The Australian dollar has fallen to its lowest level for almost two years, dipping below 93 US cents this morning after the US Federal Reserve said it could begin scaling back stimulus measures.

The dive came as investors flocked to the safe haven of the US dollar amid fears the withdrawal of stimulus will affect the global economy.

The Australian dollar was worth 94.2 US cents last night, but fell to 92.93 US cents.

Brazil says it will deploy elite national security forces to five major cities to quell violent clashes between police and protesters outraged over massive spending for next year's soccer World Cup and rising costs of living.

The ANZ bank has confirmed it is considering sacking nearly 600 Melbourne staff.

The Qld Nurses Union says Brisbane's Wesley Hospital must explain why it kept quiet about a fatal case of legionnaires' disease two years ago.

The hospital is dealing with a deadly outbreak that killed one patient and had claimed it was the first such case.

Yesterday that story changed when a spokesman admitted a male patient had died after contracting legionnaires' at the hospital in 2011.