Heartwrenching footage of 12-year-old Sydney schoolgirl Charlotte before she took her own life has been shared by her family.

The Santa Sabina College year 7 student, who died by suicide on September 9 after what her family says was relentless bullying, was excited about attending her year 6 school formal last year.

Her parents Matt and Kelly have spoken out about Charlotte's death to incite a reform of school bullying policies across Australia.

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Meanwhile, the family of Dolly Everett – who died by suicide at age 14 in 2018 – have offered a supportive message to Charlotte's parents.

The Everetts told 9News their "hearts are with Charlotte's parents" and that her loss is a "reminder of having conversations with young people about bullying".

Charlotte's father broke down on-air while discussing his daughter's tragic death on Monday.

Charlotte's stepdad Matt spoke to 2GB's Ben Fordham Live about his daughter's suicide and revealed how his wife Kelly and the rest of the family are coping.

Matt said his entire family is "broken" but wanted to remain strong to tell Charlotte's story and give her a voice.

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"Her final wish for us to tell her story and that hopefully this would gain some awareness and something positive could possibly come from this," Matt said.

"I get up every morning and talk to whoever wants to talk to me about it, because we need change, Ben, we need to do better for our kids than we're doing today."

Year 7 student Charlotte took her own life on September 9 after struggling with school bullying for years.

Kelly said she had attempted to address the allegations of bullying with her daughter's school, Santa Sabina College, but hadn't been able to nip it in the bud.

The grief-stricken parents said it was clear the bullying contributed to Charlotte's death.

"I would not allow this behaviour to happen in my home," Matt said.

"We as adults need to step in and solve the problem… I'm looking for the schools to have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to these things."

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Matt said he and his wife are "disappointed" with Santa Sabina College's response to bullying allegations.

In a statement shared with 2GB, the college said the family's claims of bullying are "inconsistent" with their records.

Matt and wife Kelly refute this and want the school to take accountability.

"It has been heartbreaking, [but] having said that Ben I would still welcome the opportunity when the time is right, to meet with the school if they were to reach out to me directly," Matt said.

"I'm not sure, with the responses that have come from the school, that we're going to see change in that school anytime."

"I am here to talk to all the other schools today," he added.

"I'm here to talk to all the other school leaders that we need to have those difficult conversations, and while they are difficult conversations, nothing is more difficult than trying to have this conversation with parents that have lost…"

Both Charlotte's parents said they didn't want any anger or blame directed at the students at Santa Sabina College.

Matt said he wants schools to take bullying seriously and to change policies so no other child takes their own life.

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"If you have shown any emotion having listened to my daughter's story… please organise a meeting and do it today," he said.

He also thanked the local community for rallying around his family during this dark time.

"We have been overwhelmed with support since then, we have had parents rocking up at our house almost every day, bringing food and home cooked meals for us," Matt said.

"Our fridges and freezer at home are full, but our hearts are empty."

In telling Charlotte's story, Matt told Ben he wants her to be remembered for the kind, loving friend, daughter and sister she was.

In the months before her death, Charlotte was loving being a big sister to her little brother Will.

"She was just the most amazing 12-year-old you would ever meet, the kindest and most caring little girl who would put the needs of others before hers," he said.

"They were inseparable," Matt added about Charlotte and Will. 

"Her mum told Charlotte before she even told me and Charlotte dropped to the ground in joy, she said that is the only wish I have for [my] next birthday.

"She didn't need anything else because she had a little brother."

Matt told Ben he was technically Charlotte's stepdad but had been a father to her since he met her mum, Kelly.

The pair were due to get married in a month.

Matt and Kelly want people to donate to Kids Helpline in lieu of flowers ahead of Charlotte's funeral on Friday.

Crisis support is available from Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Support is available from Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.

The Brownlow Medal, the AFL's most prestigious individual award, is being handed out on September 23. Check out the best looks from the red carpet here.

Liberal MP Kim Wells said it was the moment he knew his then-party colleague Moira Deeming had been "double-crossed".

Wells had been acting as a conduit between Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto and Deeming, when he claimed he realised an agreement between the pair would never eventuate.

Wells gave evidence on today as part of the defamation trial against Pesutto in the Federal Court of Australia.

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Deeming, who has been an independent MP since being expelled from the Liberals, brought the legal action against Pesutto over comments he made about her attending a transgender-critical women's rights rally in March 2023 outside state parliament.

That rally was attended by right-wing activists who threw Nazi salutes while standing on the parliament steps.

Wells faced questioning from Pesutto's barrister Matthew Collins KC about his involvement in talks between both sides to reach a compromise.

Asked by deputy leader David Southwick to act as a mentor for Deeming, Wells helped broker a deal between the pair.

In that deal Deeming would be suspended for nine months rather than expelled from the party, he said.

There would also be a joint statement from Pesutto's office in conjunction with Deeming, who would in-turn condemn the attendance of Nazis at the rally.

Wells believed the deal included an agreement the party would fully exonerate Deeming from any wrongdoing.

But when Pesutto took the deal to the party room, he never included the plan to fully exonerate her.

"That's when we knew we'd been double crossed," Wells told the court.

Collins suggested Pesutto never promised to exonerate Deeming and questioned why he would ever do such a thing.

"To secure his leadership," Wells said.

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A series of emails written by Deeming to Wells was also shown to the court, airing her frustration the Liberal Party had gone back on its word.

"I only agreed to the suspension on the basis that any and all imputations of guilt associated with the notice to expel me be removed, and that I be publicly exonerated," Deeming wrote.

Current and former Liberals David Hodgett, Joe McCraken and Ryan Smith also gave evidence on Monday.

Others, including including federal Senator Sarah Henderson, Southwick and former MP Matt Bach who now lives in the UK, are expected to be questioned.

Large, explosive and destructive fires have torn through parts of California this year, well before the state's most extreme fire weather conditions typically arrive, and it's stoking fears that the season has devastating potential to come.

It's all happening because weather extremes that are becoming more likely in a warming world are combining with volatile effect.

It's been a typical fire season in California so far based on overall statistics.

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More than 6000 wildfires have scorched nearly 1 million acres – very close to the average of about 950,000 acres, according to data from CAL FIRE.

Only, some of the fires have been anything but normal.

The Park Fire ignited in July in Northern California and grew so fast and furious it became the fourth-largest in state history.

The blaze tore through an area about the size of San Diego, destroyed at least 700 structures and injured at least three firefighters.

The still-burning Line Fire got so violent last week it created its own weather.

Just west of it was the Bridge Fire, which displayed jaw-dropping growth when it burned through about 19km of land in a single day, according to Tim Chavez, a retired assistant fire chief with CAL FIRE.

These fires all happened without the notorious seasonal winds responsible for fanning some of the most menacing flames in state history, according to Chavez.

The hot, dry air of the Santa Ana and Diablo winds originates in the desert and blows over mountains and out to sea.

These winds create easily ignitable, bone-dry fuels and blow so intensely they can morph a small flame into a massive blaze.

To have a fire like the Bridge Fire grow so rapidly without Santa Ana winds is "fairly significant and unusual," Chavez remarked.

Instead, it's what's on the ground that's been fueling them.

The amount of plant growth this year in parts of the state is nearly double what's typical, mainly due to the state's past two wet winters, according to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

All this new growth was dried out by bursts of heat during a record-hot summer. In early June, abnormally dry conditions only existed in about 1 per cent of California, according to the US Drought Monitor.

Now, more than 70 per cent of the state is abnormally dry or worse.

This wet to hot-dry pattern is becoming more likely because of climate change, Swain said.

The atmosphere is able to soak up more moisture as the world warms, like an increasingly larger sponge.

The sponge can wring out the moisture to unload torrential rain in the wet season, but it can also suck more moisture out of the ground during the dry season, meaning soil will get drier, Swain explained.

This sequence of sizzling summers following wet winters is one of the most potent combinations in repeatedly producing an active wildfire season because fire fuels regrow only to be dried and burned again, according to Swain.

Picture a desert environment where plant life is normally limited in scope.

"In a dry year, it's very hard to get a wildfire to move through that landscape because (it) has natural fire breaks every five to 10 feet," Swain explained.

"So lightning strikes a Joshua Tree, burns that tree, maybe an adjacent bush and that's it."

But that changes after a wet winter.

"You might have abundant growth of brush, and in particular invasive grasses that might fill in the gaps, literally increasing (the amount) of potential fuel," Swain said.

Now any fire that starts after a hot, dry summer can spread farther.

Where peak fire danger could still be to come

Autumn marks a critical inflection point for fire season in California given typical weather conditions.

Santa Ana and Diablo winds typically start to pick up in September and bouts of them persist through May.

Once they arrive, the calculus for fire crews changes as fires driven by them make sudden, violent shifts.

Chavez is "always" concerned about what Santa Ana winds could unleash on the fire season in Southern California.

The region has already been highlighted by the National Interagency Fire Centre as a potential hotspot for fire activity through at least December.

But Chavez noted the state's Central Coast could also be a trouble spot due to its immense fuels that have yet to burn.

Even if the Santa Ana winds hold off a little longer, it's possible fire weather conditions similar to what facilitated Southern California's recent blazes could reemerge as soon as the end of September, according to Swain.

Swain is eyeing a potential heat wave for late September into early October that could send temperatures soaring in California and the Southwest and dry out more fire fuels.

He is also concerned the state's rainy season may have a delayed start.

Rain later in the season typically helps tamp down fire activity.

The number of extreme fall fire-weather days in California has more than doubled since the early 1980s because of warmer and drier autumns as global temperatures rise because of climate change, a study Swain co-authored found.

"Whether the winds or the rains win out is sort of that race that we play every year," Swain said.

"I would say this year, more likely than not, the winds will win out in Southern California."

A bird carcass in Queensland in 1990. A single feather inside a wedge-tailed eagle's nest in South Australia in 2017. A first-in-a-century capture in western Queensland in 2016.

The clues as to the existence of Australia's most elusive bird have been few and far between.

The night parrot, which was once plentiful among the old growth spinifex of inland Australia, was thought to be extinct for almost 100 years after being last sighted in 1912.

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In the last two decades, new evidence of its continued existence have sparked a flurry of activity from birdwatchers and hurried measures to protect its dwindling habitat.

Dubbed the 'Thylacine of the air', fewer than 20 of the birds are known to inhabit Queensland and up until 2020, there were only occasional detections across Western Australia.

But now, a new find in Western Australia's remote Pilbara has revealed new hope for the critically endangered species.

A team of researchers from the National Environmental Science Program's Resilient Landscapes Hub and the University of Queensland have partnered with local Indigenous rangers in the Ngururrpa Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) in the far east of the Pilbara to search for evidence of the elusive bird.

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What they found was the largest known group of night parrots in existence, spanning an area 160km north to south and 90km east to west.

Using audio recorders called songmeters, they conducted nighttime surveys of 31 sites between 2020 and 2023.

At 17 of these locations, they were able to capture the nocturnal bird's distinctive call.

The research team believe there are likely at least 50 of the birds inhabiting the 17 sites – more than the sum total of all those previously discovered across Australia.

"Before we detected night parrot calls on the Ngururrpa IPA in 2020, there was little awareness that this cryptic, nocturnal bird was still persisting on Ngururrpa Country," the study authors wrote in the article published today in CSIRO Publishing.

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"Once the song of the bird was played, people recalled hearing its whistle as children, and being told that it was an evil spirit."

At the places where the parrots were detected, camera-traps were then set up to survey predators and collected predator scats for dietary analysis.

Dingoes were commonly spotted in the places were the birds roosted – believed to be a protective force against feral cats, a key threat to the species.

Almost half of the world's bird species is in decline, with more than 160 species lost globally in the past 500 years.

Invasive species have been a key driver of this, but now the new threat of climate change has overtaken as the leading threat to Australia's bird life.

The night parrot is no exception, with the greatest threat to its survival believed to be bushfires – which typically occur every six to 10 years in the Ngururrpa Indigenous Protected Area where the new population has been uncovered.

Climate change is leading to more frequent and intense bushfire seasons, threatening the old growth spinifex crucial to the birds' survival.

The study authors recommended a long-term monitoring program be established on Ngururrpa Country to investigate the birds further and determine whether their population was in decline, stable or increasing.

A lavish mansion owned by an iconic Australian retailing family is heading for sale next month, and is expected to become Melbourne's first home to fetch $100 million or more.

Cranlana, an Edwardian-era estate in the blue-chip suburb of Toorak, is being offered for sale by Myer Family Investments (MFI), reports the Australian Financial Review.

The property of more than 1.1 hectares was bought by businessman and founder of the famous Myer department stores Sidney Myer and his second wife, Merlyn, in 1921.

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It has been owned by the family for more than 100 years, but MFI chairman Sidney Myer says the time has come for a new owner.

Constructed in 1903, Cranlana was redesigned by Sidney Myer in 1929 who engaged the Melbourne architectural firm that designed his landmark stores in the city.

The mansion boasts six to eight bedrooms, depending on layout, a tennis court and a pool, but is most famous for its sunken formal gardens.

Other features of the home include an original ballroom, several living areas and a library and formal dining room.

Being one of only two houses in Toorak on land of more than 1 hectare, Cranala is expected to go for at least $100 million when it goes up for auction.

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Even if it reaches that staggering price, it would be some way off the price of Australia's most expensive home.

That was set two years ago when Uig Lodge, a mansion in Sydney's eastern suburbs was sold for $130 million.

Marcus Chiminello of Marshall White has been appointed by MFI to sell Cranlana via expressions of interest.

"Cranlana is without peer in the Victorian property market," he said.

"Once-in-a-generation opportunities like these often create their own market. We anticipate interest from buyers locally, nationally, and from afar that will be excited about the opportunity to become the new custodian of Cranlana."

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Heavy rain saw 16 rivers burst their banks in a region still reeling from a deadly quake earlier this year.

Prominent cross-benchers are calling for changes to Australian lotteries as the parliament prepares to consider reforms for gambling advertising.

Despite taking a higher proportion of low income family wages, lotteries have been carved out of any future changes.

For decades lotto has been billed as a ticket to dream, but it's almost never the reality.

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"It really is a problem when you are allowed to go into debt – and it is addictive," Zali Steggall, Independent MP for Warringah, said. 

Steggall wants changes to laws to restrict foreign lotteries and prevent tickets being bought with credit cards.

"I think there is a question about social licence – what is your contribution back to Australian society for what you are sucking out of it," she said.

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A recent Parliamentary report recommended changes to gambling laws, but specifically instructed "these measures have no adverse consequences for lotteries"

"It's very hard to do a lot of damage with Lotto. Lotto is at the very soft end of gambling," Alliance for Gambling Reform chief advocate, Tim Costello, said.

That same report, championed by late Labor MP Peta Murphy, is at the heart of current debate about sports betting advertising.

"Just for once today, just for once, put the future of our kids first. Put the future of our kids first. I am begging you," Senator Jacqui Lambie said. 

Betting companies argue they provide funding for clubs, leagues and media outlets showcasing sport throughout Australia. 

With an all out ban threatening the viability of free to air sports broadcasting and thousands of jobs across multiple industries, the government is eyeing a more targeted approach.

"We want to make sure any measures do not have unintended consequences," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

Meanwhile, The Greens are prepared to wait – and will attempt to amend existing bills to ban all gambling ads.

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"It's time we stopped advertising for gambling," Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

With a multi-billion dollar industry at stake, discussion continues.

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The girlfriend of a man fighting for life after allegedly being knocked unconscious in Adelaide has told 9News her "heart broke into a million pieces".

Jordan Dodd, 20, remains in a critical condition in hospital with multiple brain bleeds, while his accused attacker faced court today.

Described as a footy-mad, loveable larrikin, Dodd is unconscious after the alleged attack in the city's Hindley Street.

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Dodd was attacked from behind and knocked unconscious just before 5.30am yesterday.

He suffered multiple face fractures, bruised lungs, a lung infection and two brain bleeds.

"Seeing my boyfriend lay there in a hospital bed with tubes down his throat forcing him to breathe with blood everywhere is f—- horrifying," his girlfriend Dakota Leo said

"They had to remove a piece of his skull so they could get it out, then they've put something in his head."

Dakota Leo believes her boyfriend was attacked for protecting her from a group of girls.

"She goes, 'I'll show you what's dog' and grabs me by my hair and rips me and someone smashes me on this side," Leo said.

"Someone smashes me here and I got took to the floor and that's when my boyfriend came running in," Leo said.

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"He was yelling at the girls and then the dude proceeds to run up behind him and jab him in the back of the head,"

Police say 23-year-old Clearview man Craig Weetra was arrested nearby.

He faced court today charged with assault causing serious harm with intent.

His girlfriend and brother were in court too.

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Weetra has applied for home detention.

The prosecution alleged Weetra punched the victim in the head and stomped on his chest before running away.

"My heart broke into a million pieces," Leo said.

"I just hope he gets better."

The family of a teenager killed when a stolen car with teenagers inside ploughed into his motorbike in Melbourne's north have paid tribute to their "beautiful boy".

Davide Pollina's parents said his killers needed to hand themselves in and take responsibility for their actions.

The Pollina family moved to Australia from Italy for a better life but instead they lost their only son.

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"My son, the beautiful boy. Special boy," Nicola Pollina, Davide's father, told 9News.

The 19-year-old was riding his favourite motorcycle after visiting friends when he was hit by a stolen BMW on Bell Street in Preston early yesterday morning.

"The people involved need to take responsibility," family friend Linda Vaccaro said.

"Life is just too short. We will never recover from this."

The luxury vehicle was stolen from Pascoe Vale South an hour before crashing into Davide.

Police had been tracking the car but they were too late. 

"I love you. Miss you too much," Nicola said, through tears, as he hugged his wife tightly.

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Along with his heartbroken parents and sister, colleagues of the concrete pumper paid their respects, raising their equipment in the air as a final salute. 

"One of the best at his job, everybody loved him," colleague Tanya Prior said.

A 16-year-old boy who police believe was a passenger of the stolen car fled on foot was arrested shortly after and released without charge.

It's understood he was already on bail at the time of the crash.