Australian news headlines: April 29, 2017

►MOUNT ISA: The brand Budgy Smuggler has installed its new billboard of its favourite photo which had been taken in front of the former version.

The Welcome To Mount Isa Billboard on the Barkly Highway east of the remote western Queensland city features a man hanging off the original billboard in budgie smugglers with a design of the Aboriginal flag. Read more.

►WOLLONGONG: The more than 200 workers who died while on the job across Australia in the past 16 months were remembered at a ceremony in Wollongong on Friday.

Illawarra union representatives, politicians and community leaders paused beside the city’s miners’ memorial – outside the Wollongong City Council building – as part of International Workers’ Memorial Day commemorations. Read more.

►QUEENSTOWN: A multi-million dollar investment to fast-track a revival of Mt Lyell has provided hope the West Coast region will be reinvigorated, mayor Phil Vickers said.

State government announced on Friday it would spend $9.5 million to help fund upgrades essential to restarting operations at the Queenstown mine. Read more.

►BALLARAT: An $81 million plan to add 30 extra drug rehabilitation beds and acquire land to build three new treatment centres in regional Victoria will not assist many Ballarat residents crippled by an ice addiction.

The state government announced of Friday that three drug rehabilitation facilities would be developed in the Barwon, Hume and Gippsland regions to aid communities hardest hit by the ice scourge. Read more.

►MANDURAH: Mandurah Road southbound was brought to standstill on Friday afternoon following a three-car crash near the intersection of Murdoch Drive and Mandurah Road, Greenfields.

It is understood a semi-trailer, a ute and a 4wd collided at the intersection just before 4.30pm. Read more.

►AUBURN: A sports car that was stolen during a test drive in Sydney's north-east on Wednesday night, sparking an erratic high-speed car chase, has been found in the city's west.

The white Audi R8, worth $230,000, was stolen at Seaforth after its owner posted it for sale online and a man contacted him asking to see it. Read more.

►MURRAY VALLEY: Victoria Police E-Crime Squad detectives, together with News South Wales Fraud and Cybercrime Squad and SA Police Electronic Crime Section detectives, have arrested a youth in relation to a series of bomb hoaxes in the three states.

Seventy-one threats were allegedly made to schools throughout Victoria, NSW and SA between May 2016 and April 2017. Read more.

►BATHURST: Warm, sunny weather is predicted right across the Royal Bathurst Show, and with so much to see and do the showground is the place to be. Read more.

What does it look like in your neck of the woods today?

► When Malcolm Turnbull decreed at the National Press Club in February that 2017 would be all about energy security, he thought he'd found the perfect wedge between Labor's green-tinged renewables focus and the bulk of ordinary people hit by soaring electricity prices.

He never dreamt he would be forced into a U-turn on gas and one of the more dramatic government-led market interventions in recent times. Read more.

► A new 14-storey high school will be built in inner Sydney for 1200 students as the government scrambles to meet a surge in enrolments that will require 12 new schools to be built every year.

The new Surry Hills school, to be built on the site of the existing Cleveland Street Intensive English High School, is expected to open in 2020 and is one of five high-rise government schools currently planned for greater Sydney. Read more.

► Fears about rising energy prices have driven consumers and businesses to install solar panels at the fastest rate in at least a decade, lifting total national capacity to the equivalent of powering a city the size of Melbourne.

New figures from the Australian Photovoltaic Institute show the country has passed 6 gigawatts of solar capacity as of the end of March, or enough to supply about 1.3 million households. Read more.

► CHINA: China and Russia have vowed "to take further action" against the United States' ambition to build a global anti-missile shield that they argue will give US forces a unilateral military advantage. Read more.

► BALI: A 26-year-old Australian woman has been found dead in Bali after a motorcycle accident. Read more.

► US: Donald Trump's attempts to prevent citizens of six predominantly Muslim nations from entering the US is helping the cause of extremists, former British prime minister David Cameron has declared. Read more.

It takes a lot of passion and dedication to work in the community sector and an extra dose of both to stay there for 20 years with the same organisation that gave you your first opportunity. 

Cheryl Keogh has been working with Accessible Living Options, in its original and current configuration, since March of 1997, just two years after it became part of the community. Read more.

► 1770: Captain James Cook first sets foot in NSW at Botany Bay.

► 1825: Van Diemen's Land (renamed Tasmania in 1855) established as a separate colony.

► 1975: Vietnam War: US begins to evacuate it's citizens from Saigon in Operation Frequent Wind in response to advancing North Vietnamese forces, bringing an end to US involvement in the war.

► 1990: Wrecking cranes began tearing down the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate.