Regional Victorian legal firm issues call-out to regional border communities for interest from agribusiness to join class action, citing freedom of trade across state borders as a 'very important guarantee in our federal constitution'.

The ABC confirms the university, which rakes in about $16.5 billion in revenue each year and is ranked the 11th best school in the US, received the payments while Australian public universities missed out.

Indonesia's transport safety agency says investigators have successfully downloaded information from the flight data recorder (FDR) of the Sriwijaya Air jet that crashed into the sea last week.

It is an offence in Queensland to carry an unconcealed gel blaster in public from February 1, with police urging owners of the toy guns to be fully aware of their responsibilities or face harsher penalties including jail time.

Despite China's ban on Australian coal, exports from Australia's busiest port of Newcastle have seen only a slight dip with a cold northern winter driving up global demand.