Plans for Ballarat’s newest residential estate include a primary and secondary school. Read more.

Ballarat businesses are worried about being lumped in with a “minority” of employers who are doing the wrong thing, Commerce Ballarat deputy chair Hayley Coates said. Read more.

It has been a busy weekend on Ballarat’s roads, with a number of drivers nabbed for flouting the law. Read more.

Peter Mahoney is a man on a mission. Read more.

A clergy sexual abuse survivor says he has lost faith the Vatican will enact a reform to eradicate paedophile clergy from the Catholic Church. Read more.

The hot spell continues - sunny and 31 degrees today.

Need a national news snapshot first thing - well, we have you covered. 

►NSW: Wild weather lashed through New South Wales on Monday, with flash flooding, hail and heavy rain hitting central and northern parts of the state. 

Dubbo residents woke to a spectacular lightning show and 21.4mm of rain on Monday. A second wave of heavy rain, hail and damaging winds hit the city at 12.45pm. 

Communities braced for more wild weather after lightning struck an aged care centre in the region.

A severe storm warning for damaging winds, large hailstones and heavy rainfall issued for Tuesday was cancelled by the Bureau of Meteorology. Read more

► WA: The WA election was supposed to be One Nation's demonstration of its unstoppable momentum.

Instead, it has exposed the party's exceptional vulnerability. On Saturday the party won just half the share of the vote that it won in the WA election of 2001.

In 16 years, its voter support in that state fell from 9.5 per cent to 4.7 per cent, according to the two-thirds of the vote counted by late Sunday.

►VIC: About 90 long-term residents at a Bendigo caravan park will be uprooted in December after the current business owners were refused an extension to their lease.  

Retirees living at the Central City Caravan Park could fork out thousands to relocate, with one resident quoted $40,000, according to evidence given to a parliamentary inquiry into retirement housing. Read on

►QLD: An award-winning biodynamic dairy farm on the Atherton Tablelands has launched Australia’s first certified biodynamic flavoured milk.

Under development for the past six months, Mungalli Creek Dairy at Millaa Millaa today launched Biodynamic Bliss, a full cream, lactose free product. There is no added sugar but probiotics have been added for gut health. Read more

►TAS: Incensed at a decision to slash penalty rates, Tasmanian unions have rallied outside the office of one of the decision’s most vocal supporters.

The campaign against the Fair Work Commission’s ruling to cut Sunday penalty rates in certain sectors was taken to the door of Senator Eric Abetz’s Hobart office. Read on

►NSW: It boasts 10 bedrooms, a tennis court, horse stables and a resort-style swimming pool, set on nine acres of immaculately landscaped grounds with lake frontage. 

So perhaps the most surprising thing about this spectacular Cams Wharf property is that currently, it is used as a private residence and not a luxury resort. 

But that could be about to change. Read more

►ILAWARRA: A Sydney man who remained at large for more than two decades after having sex with an underage girl in bushland near Thirroul Beach in the early 1990s has avoided time behind bars​. Read more

►Treasurer Scott Morrison has linked housing affordability to Australia's birth rate, suggesting would-be home buyers are delaying having kids so they can get into the property market.

But Mr Morrison has - once again - poured cold water on the idea that axing negative gearing tax concessions is the way to lower barriers to entry into the property market Read more

►The death of mangrove forests stretched over 1000 kilometres of Australia's northern coast a year ago has been blamed on extreme conditions including record temperatures.

About 7400 hectares of mangroves strung along the Gulf of Carpentaria died in early 2016 because of the unusual warmth, a prolonged drought and an El Nino that reduced local sea levels by about 20 centimetres, said Norman Duke, head of the Mangrove Research hub at James Cook University. Read more

What’s coming you way …

►BALI: Byron Bay woman Sara Connor has been found guilty of fatal group assault and jailed for four years over the death of a Bali police officer despite maintaining her innocence throughout a marathon four-month trial. The seven months Connor has already spent in jail will be deducted from her sentence.

The verdict comes after her British DJ boyfriend David Taylor - who confessed to bashing Wayan Sudarsa but insisted he was acting in self-defence - was convicted of fatal group assault and sentenced to six years' jail. Read more

►BULGARIA: A Sydney man arrested in Bulgaria on terrorism charges claims he was coerced into going to a shooting range by a Bulgarian man he'd only just met.

John Zakhariev, 21, was arrested following a raid on the home he shared with his retired UN diplomat father, Svetlomir, in Sofia in September.

The former Waverley College student travelled to Syria in 2013, the year after he graduated, with the help of two Sydney extremists who went on to die while fighting for Islamic State. Read more

Rain, hail or shine, locals in a town North-West of Sydney are greeting with the smile of lollipop lady Tucky Cooley.

Ms Cooley, 45 years old from Bligh Park, got into lollipopping because she wanted a job that allowed her the freedom to pursue volunteer work.

She donates her services as a JP (justice of the peace) at Windsor Library on Wednesdays and Fridays (10.30-11.30am), and also does Aboriginal storytelling. She is currently helping her partner organise an autism fundraiser at North Richmond Panthers.

“I do a lot of volunteer work so the hours were great to suit. I am also trying to volunteer at Pioneer Village doing Aboriginal storytelling, as I want to try and bring the Aboriginal culture into the Village,” she said.