Some students and graduates with a HECS-HELP debt will get a reprieve from making compulsory repayments this financial year.

That's because the repayment threshold has been raised, as it is each year.

Last financial year, the threshold kicked in at $48,361, meaning anyone with a student loan earning above that amount was required to make repayments.

But the threshold was raised from July, and people can now earn up to $51,549 before they have to pay the money back.

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) has been sending out emails to let people with student loans know about the changes.

If you have a student loan, here is what you need to know.

What is the HECS-HELP repayment rate?

If you're earning more than $51,549, then the amount you need to pay back will depend on how much your income is.

The repayment rate is calculated as a percentage of your income and is automatically deducted by employers with each paycheck.

The repayment is different from the indexation rate, which is applied to student loans each year on June 1 by the ATO.

Indexation is calculated in line with inflation and this year was 7.1 per cent.

This year's high indexation rate caught many students off guard and meant someone with the average national student debt of  $24,770.75 had an extra $1758.72 added to their amount owing.

What's the new repayment rate?

Here are the new repayment rates, which came into effect from July:

• Below $51,550: Nil

• $51,550 — $59,518: 1.0 per cent

• $59,519 — $63,089: 2.0 per cent

• $63,090 — $66,875: 2.5 per cent

• $66,876 — $70,888: 3.0 per cent

• $70,889 — $75,140: 3.5 per cent

• $75,141 — $79,649: 4.0 per cent

• $79,650 — $84,429: 4.5 per cent

• $84,430 — $89,494: 5.0 per cent

• $89,495 — $94,865: 5.5 per cent

• $94,866 — $100,557: 6.0 per cent

• $100,558 — $106,590: 6.5 per cent

• $106,591 — $112,985: 7.0 per cent

• $112,986 — $119,764: 7.5 per cent

• $119,765 — $126,950: 8.0 per cent

• $126,951 — $134,568: 8.5 per cent

• $134,569 — $142,642: 9.0 per cent

• $142,643 — $151,200: 9.5 per cent

• $151,201 and above: 10 per cent

What's the catch?

For those people who find themselves now earning under the repayment threshold, this could be seen as good news.

However, not paying your debt off now could mean you end up paying more in the long term because of the indexation that is applied.

While inflation appears to be tracking downward, this year's hefty 7.1 per cent indexation has highlighted the potential dangers of waiting to pay off your student loan.

Jason Langhans was trying to stop two boys from fighting at a 16th birthday party when one of them turned on him.

He was hit in the head with a screwdriver and immediately collapsed to the ground as a brawl broke out.

The 17-year-old died in hospital three weeks later.

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His attacker, who cannot be named, had gatecrashed the party in Tooradin, south-east of Melbourne, that evening in March 2021.

While drinking and smoking marijuana at a house earlier, he had armed himself after a friend told him "there might be trouble".

The boy, who was also aged 17, grabbed a screwdriver.

He later drove that screwdriver almost 8cm into Jason's brain.

"I hit one guy badly," he was heard saying after leaving the party.

Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth said Jason had no chance to defend himself when he was fatally hit by the teen, as she sentenced him on Thursday.

"You were carrying a screwdriver to a party, which you were prepared to use as a weapon if there was any trouble," she said.

"Jason was not behaving aggressively and had no weapon, you hit him without warning."

Jason's supporters shouted from the Supreme Court public gallery, as they learnt the now-18-year-old killer could walk free from prison in two years.

"Please be quiet, this is not a football stadium," Hollingworth said.

"This is a courtroom if you can't behave appropriately, leave now."

The teen had suffered a traumatic upbringing, growing up around bombings in Afghanistan, fleeing to Pakistan, Indonesia and then arriving in Australia by boat, the judge said.

There was no food or water on the boat and his siblings became unconscious on the journey.

He felt like a prisoner in a cage as he then spent two months at a Christmas Island detention centre and four months in Australian detention camps before settling in Geelong.

Hollingworth took into account the teen's trauma, young age, early offers to plead guilty and vulnerability if he was placed in an adult prison, in deciding his sentence.

She handed him a maximum six-year sentence and he must serve at least four years before he will be eligible for parole.

He has already spent just over two years in prison.

The judge requested the parole board consider transferring him to the youth justice system until he is 21.

A mass of swirling warm water off Australia's north-west could be the strongest indicator yet that residents should brace for a long, dry summer.

Weatherzone has reported a positive Indian Ocean Dipole pattern beginning to emerge, "increasing the likelihood of abnormally warm and dry weather over large parts of the country this spring".

The IOD measures sea surface temperatures in the tropical Indian Ocean.

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A "positive" result means that warmer water is building by Africa, and colder water is building near Indonesia.

This has the effect of reducing the amount of rain and moist air coming to Australia from the north-west, increasing temperatures over parts of the country.

"Negative" IOD events, as seen in 2021 and 2022, mean the cold and warm water swap sides, bringing extra rain.

Weatherzone said the last positive IOD event was in 2019.

READ MORE: Wagner boss presumed dead after Russia plane crash

"This was a very strong IOD event and resulted in Australia's driest year on record," the website reported.

The IOD index has now risen to 0.79, the highest since December 2019.

It's forecast to stay above 0.4 in coming weeks, which will lead to the Bureau of Meteorology declaring the onset of a positive event, Weatherzone said.

In which case, much of Australia can look towards a hotter, drier summer than has been seen for years.

Mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a brief armed rebellion against the Russian military earlier this year, was aboard a plane that crashed north of Moscow on Wednesday, killing all 10 people on board, according to Russia's civil aviation agency.

The crash immediately raised suspicions since the fate of the founder of the Wagner private military company has been the subject of intense speculation ever since he mounted the mutiny.

At the time, President Vladimir Putin denounced the rebellion as "treason" and a "stab in the back" and vowed to avenge it. But the charges against Prigozhin were soon dropped. The Wagner chief, whose troops were some of the best fighting forces for Russia in Ukraine, was allowed to retreat to Belarus, while reportedly popping up in Russia from time to time.

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The crash also comes after Russian media reported that a top general linked to Prigozhin was dismissed from his position as commander of the air force.

A plane carrying three pilots and seven passengers that was en route from Moscow to St Petersburg went down almost 300km north of the capital, according to officials cited by Russia's state news agency Tass.

Russia's civilian aviation agency, Rosaviatsia, quickly reported that he was on the manifest and later said that, according to the airline, he was indeed on board.

Earlier, Vladimir Rogov, a Russia-appointed official in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region in Ukraine, said he talked to Wagner commanders who also confirmed that Prigozhin was aboard, as was Dmitry Utkin, whose call sign Wagner became the company's name.

"I don't know for a fact what happened but I'm not surprised," US President Joe Biden said.

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Keir Giles, a Russia expert with the UK international affairs think-tank Chatham House, had urged caution about reports of Prigozhin's death. He said "multiple individuals have changed their name to Yevgeniy Prigozhin, as part of his efforts to obfuscate his travels."

"Let's not be surprised if he pops up shortly in a new video from Africa," Giles said.

Flight tracking data reviewed by The Associated Press showed a private jet that Prigozhin had used previously took off from Moscow on Wednesday evening and its transponder signal disappeared minutes later.

The signal stopped suddenly while the plane was at altitude and traveling at speed. In an image posted by a pro-Wagner social media account showing burning wreckage, a partial tail number matching a jet previously used by Prigozhin could be seen.

Videos shared by the pro-Wagner Telegram channel Grey Zone showed a plane dropping like a stone from a large cloud of smoke, twisting widely as it falls. Such freefalls can occur when an aircraft sustains severe damage, and a frame-by-frame analysis by The AP of two videos were consistent with some sort of explosion mid-flight. The images appeared to show the plane is missing a wing.

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Prigozhin was sometimes called "Putin's chef", after regularly being entrusted to provide catering services to the Kremlin and it's leader.

Wagner forces were heavily involved in capturing the eastern Ukrainian cities of Soledar and Bakhmut following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Prigozhin then spent months criticising Russian military leadership and the support it was giving his troops before he called for the armed rebellion in late June.

Wagner troops seized control of southern Russian city Rostov-on-Don before threatening to march towards Moscow, leaving police to block all roads leading to the capital.

However, the armed mutiny against Russia's military leadership was short-lived, lasting just two days.

The Kremlin said Prigozhin would be exiled to Belarus, and his fighters would either retire, follow him there, or join the Russian military.

Shortly after that, Wagner fighters set up camp in Belarus, but Prigozhin's plane, according to media reports, was flying back and forth between Belarus and Russia.

This week, Prigozhin posted his first recruitment video since the mutiny, saying that Wagner is conducting reconnaissance and search activities, and "making Russia even greater on all continents, and Africa even more free."

As the news about the crash was breaking, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke at an event commemorating the Battle of Kursk, hailing the heroes of Russia's "the special military operation" in Ukraine.

With Associated Press, CNN

At least 26 workers have been killed after a bridge under construction collapsed in northeast India, the latest in a string of infrastructure failures that have resulted in multiple deaths in the country.

The collapse of the bridge in the town of Sairang, Mizoram state, killed at least 26 people and injured several others, according to its chief minister, Zoramthanga, who goes by one name.

Video and photos posted by Zoramthanga to Twitter, now known as X, show the broken structure laying on the ground, with a thick plume of dust and smoke billowing in the air.

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"Deeply saddened and affected by this tragedy," he wrote. "I extend my deepest condolences to all the bereaved families and wishing a speedy recovery to the injured."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in South Africa for the BRICS economic grouping summit, also offered his condolences to those killed in the incident.

"Pained by the bridge mishap in Mizoram," Modi wrote on X, offering a sum of nearly US$2,500 to the next of kin of those killed and US$600 to the injured workers.

Mizoram is a hilly, mountainous state near India's border with Bangladesh and Myanmar. Its villages and towns rely on a network of unsurfaced roads and single lane tracks, highways and bridges, for connectivity.

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Tuesday's collapse isn't the first in recent months to make headlines in India, a country that has been rapidly transforming its infrastructure and spending millions to upgrade its transport network.

In June, a four-lane concrete bridge that was being built across the River Ganges in the eastern state of Bihar collapsed for the second time in just over a year, raising questions about the quality of its construction.

Last October, a recently repaired suspension bridge gave way in the town of Morbi in Gujarat, killing 135 people.

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The man known as the BTK serial killer has been named the “prime suspect” in two unsolved killings — one in Oklahoma and another in Missouri — leading authorities to dig this week near his former Kansas property in Park City, authorities have announced.

Osage County, Oklahoma, Undersheriff Gary Upton said the investigation into whether Dennis Rader was responsible for additional crimes started with the re-examination last year of the 1976 disappearance of Cynthia Kinney, a 16-year-old cheerleader in Pawhuska. The case, which was investigated on and off over the years, was reopened in December.

Sheriff Eddie Virden told KAKE-TV that a bank was having new alarms installed across the street from the laundromat where Kinney was last seen. Radar was a regional installer for ADT at the time, although the sheriff wasn't able to confirm that Rader installed the systems. He also was involved in Boy Scouts in the area.

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Virden said he decided to investigate when he learned that Rader had included the phrase “bad laundry day” in his writings.

Upton, the undersheriff, said the investigation “spiraled out from there” into other unsolved murders and missing persons cases."

“We sit just on the other side of the state line from Kansas and Wichita, which is his stomping grounds. And so yeah, we were following leads based off of our investigations and just unpacked other missing persons and murders, unsolved homicides that possibly point towards BTK,” he said.

Upton said Rader is also the prime suspect in the death of 22-year-old Shawna Beth Garber, whose body was discovered in December 1990 in McDonald County, Missouri. An autopsy revealed she had been raped, strangled and restrained with different bindings about two months before her body was found. Her remains weren’t identified until 2021.

Rader’s taunting killing spree started in 1974 and ended in 1991.

A city code inspector in Kansas, he was arrested in February 2005 — a year after resuming communications with police and the media after going silent years earlier. In earlier communications, he gave himself the nickname BTK — for “bind, torture and kill.”

BTK resurfaced in 2004 with a letter to The Wichita Eagle that included photos of a 1986 strangling victim and a photocopy of her missing driver’s licence. That letter was followed by several other cryptic messages and packages. The break in the case came after a computer diskette the killer had sent was traced to Rader’s church, where he once served as president.

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Rader, now 78, ultimately confessed to 10 killings in the Wichita area, which is about 145 kilometres north of Pawhuska. The crimes occurred between 1974 and 1991.

He was sentenced in August 2005 to 10 consecutive life prison terms. Kansas had no death penalty at the time of the murders. His earliest possible release date is listed for the year 2180.

An Associated Press phone message seeking comment from the McDonald County Sheriff’s Office was not immediately returned Wednesday.

Upton declined to say how many other missing person and homicide cases are being re-examined, but told the AP that Rader could be a suspect in more cases.

No information has been released yet about what the search Tuesday in Park City uncovered. Upton described the discoveries only as “items of interest,” in a news release. The release said the items would undergo a thorough examination to determine their potential relevance.

Upton said his department is working with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. The KBI didn’t immediately respond to an email message from the AP seeking comment.

Phil Bostian, the police chief in the Wichita suburb of Park City, told KAKE-TV that Osage County called them as a courtesy and said they asked public works to move some cement and do a little digging.

Police there didn't immediately return a phone message from the AP seeking comment.

The Kansas State Board of Indigents’ Defence didn’t immediately return a phone message inquiring about Rader still has an attorney representing him.

Rader’s daughter, Kerri Rawson, told the Wichita Eagle that she worked with investigators this summer by meeting with her father in person and communicating with him for the first time in years. Rawson told Fox News that she believes investigators were looking for items related to the unsolved cases that Rader may have kept and buried on his property under a metal shed he built. The shed and Rader’s former home have been levelled.

Rawson said she also told investigators to check where Rader buried the family dog. She said she hopes investigators can determine if her father is linked to any of these other cases. “I’m still not 100 percent sure my dad did commit any more at this point,” she said to the newspaper, adding: “If my dad has harmed somebody else, we need answers.”

Schoolchildren who were rescued from a broken cable car dangling high above a valley in Pakistan have said they repeatedly feared they were about to die during the 16-hour ordeal despite attempts by their parents to reassure them over mobile phones.

Several of the children, who had been on their way to school on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) when one of the car's cables snapped, also appealed for a school and bridge to be built in their village so they wouldn't have to ride the cable car in the future.

On Wednesday, police arrested Gul Zarin, the owner of the cable car, on charges of ignoring safety measures. Local authorities in the northwestern mountainous regions said they would close all cable cars believed to be unsafe.

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New images showed the ordeal of the six children and two adults before they were pulled from the cable car in a daring rescue on Tuesday.

One of the youngest was grabbed by a commando attached to a helicopter by rope, while others were lowered to the ground with the help of volunteers using a makeshift chairlift constructed by villagers from a wooden bed frame and ropes. Volunteer Mohammad Sohaib emerged as a hero after helping to rescue three of the children, one by one.

"I had heard stories about miracles, but I saw a miraculous rescue happening with my own eyes," said 15-year-old Osama Sharif, one of those rescued.

Osama was headed to school on Tuesday to receive the results of his final exam when one of the cables snapped.

"We suddenly felt a jolt, and it all happened so suddenly that we thought all of us are going to die," he said in a telephone interview.

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Some of those aboard had mobile phones and started making calls. Worried parents tried to reassure the children.

"They were telling us don't worry, help is coming," he said. After several hours, the passengers saw helicopters flying in the air.

Locally made cable cars are a widely used form of transportation in the mountainous Battagram district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Gliding across steep valleys, they cut down travel time to schools, workplaces and businesses. But they often are poorly maintained, and every year people die or are injured while using them.

Thousands of people turned out to watch the risky operation on Tuesday. At one stage, a rope lowered from a helicopter swayed wildly as a child, secured by a harness, was pulled up.

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In fact, the choppers added an element of danger. The air currents churned up by the whirling blades risked weakening the only cable preventing the cable car from crashing to the bottom of the river canyon.

"We cried, and tears were in our eyes, as we feared the cable car will go down," Osama said.

Two other survivors, Rizwan Ullah, an 11-year-old boy and Gul Faraz, 25, told The Associated Press that they would not forget the ordeal for years.

Gul said he feared while waiting for rescue that the cable car would crash to the ground and "we would die soon."

He appealed to the government to build a school in the area and link their village to nearby towns with a bridge and a road "so our elders and young people don't face such things."

The drowning death of a former White House chef who was working for the Obama family has been ruled an accident, a spokesperson with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security said.

Tafari Campbell, 45, was found dead last month in Edgartown Great Pond on the south shore of Martha's Vineyard, state police said.

He had been paddleboarding the night before and was reported missing after he went into the water and didn't resurface, a news release from Massachusetts State Police said at the time.

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He went "into the water, appeared to briefly struggle to stay on the surface, and then submerged and did not resurface," police said. Another paddleboarder on the pond with him witnessed him go under the water, according to the release.

Campbell "was employed by former President Obama and was visiting Martha's Vineyard at the time of his passing," state police said.

The Obamas were not at their Martha's Vineyard residence at the time of the incident, according to police.

"Tafari was a beloved part of our family," Barack and Michelle Obama said in a joint statement after his death.

"When we first met him, he was a talented sous chef at the White House – creative and passionate about food, and its ability to bring people together. In the years that followed, we got to know him as a warm, fun, extraordinarily kind person who made all of our lives a little brighter," the Obamas said.

"That's why, when we were getting ready to leave the White House, we asked Tafari to stay with us, and he generously agreed. He's been part of our lives ever since, and our hearts are broken that he's gone," the statement continued.

"Today we join everyone who knew and loved Tafari – especially his wife Sherise and their twin boys, Xavier and Savin – in grieving the loss of a truly wonderful man."

India has landed its Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the moon, becoming only the fourth nation ever to accomplish such a feat.

The mission could cement India's status as a global superpower in space. Previously, only the United States, China and the former Soviet Union have completed soft landings on the lunar surface.

Chandrayaan-3's landing site is also closer to the moon's south pole than any other spacecraft in history has ventured. The south pole region is considered an area of key scientific and strategic interest for spacefaring nations, as scientists believe the region to be home to water ice deposits.

READ MORE: See striking moon photos captured by India's lunar lander during its approach

The water, frozen in shadowy craters, could be converted into rocket fuel or even drinking water for future crewed missions.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, currently in South Africa for the BRICS Summit, watched the landing virtually and shared broadcasted remarks on the livestream.

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"On this joyous occasion…I would like to address all the people of the world," he said.

"India's successful moon mission is not just India's alone. This is a year in which the world is witnessing India's G20 presidency. Our approach of one Earth, one family, one future is resonating across the globe.

"This human-centric approach that we present and we represent has been welcome universally. Our moon mission is also based on the same human-centric approach," Modi added.

"Therefore, this success belongs to all of humanity, and it will help moon missions by other countries in the future."

India's attempt to land its spacecraft near the lunar south pole comes just days after another nation's failed attempt to do the same.

Russia's Luna 25 spacecraft crashed into the moon on August 19 after its engines misfired, ending the country's first lunar landing attempt in 47 years.

Chandrayaan-3's journey

As Chandrayaan-3 approached the moon, its cameras captured photographs, including one taken on August 20 that India's space agency shared Tuesday. The image offers a close-up of the moon's dusty gray terrain.

India's lunar lander consists of three parts: a lander, rover and propulsion module, which so far has provided the spacecraft all the thrust required to traverse the 384,400-kilometre void between the moon and Earth.

The lander, called Vikram, completed the precision maneuvers required to make a soft touchdown on the lunar surface after it is ejected from the propulsion module.

Tucked inside is Pragyan, a small, six-wheeled rover that will deploy from the lander by rolling down a ramp.

Vikram used its on board thrusters to carefully orient itself as it approached the lunar surface, and it slowly throttled down its engines for a touchdown just after 6pm IST (10.30pm AEST) as applause erupted from the mission control room.

The lander, which weighs about 1,700 kilograms, and 26-kilogram rover are packed with scientific instruments, prepared to capture data to help researchers analyse the lunar surface and deliver fresh insights into its composition.

Dr. Angela Marusiak, an assistant research professor at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, said she's particularly excited that the lunar lander includes a seismometer that will attempt to detect quakes within the moon's interior.

Studying how the moon's inner layers move could be key information for future endeavors on the lunar surface, Marusiak said.

"You want to make sure that any potential seismic activity wouldn't endanger any astronauts," Marusiak said.

"Or, if we were to build structures on the moon, that they would be safe from any seismic activity."

The lander and rover are expected to function for about two weeks on the moon's surface. The propulsion module will remain in orbit, serving as a relay point for beaming data back to Earth.

A global moon rush

Working alongside allies such as the United States and France, India is part of a second wave of emerging space powers. The country's space program has become one of the world's busiest in its development of exploratory space technology.

Chandrayaan-3 has been a point of national pride and widespread interest across India. Crowds gathered at the launchpad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh state, and more than a million people tuned in on YouTube in July to watch the spacecraft take flight.

India's mission has taken on even greater significance since Russia's failed Luna 25 landing attempt. If Chandrayaan-3 is successful, India would also become the second country to land a spacecraft on the moon in the 21st century after China, which has put three landers on the lunar surface since 2013 — including the first to touch down on the moon's far side. (The last US lunar lander, the crewed Apollo 17 mission, touched down in 1972.)

More than a dozen countries have plans for missions to the moon in the coming years, including a mission launched by Japan's space agency — the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency — that is expected to lift off later this month.

The United States also has plans to send three commercial lunar landers to the moon starting as early as this year, while NASA continues to work toward its Artemis III mission, which could put astronauts back on the moon as soon as 2025.

Landing on the moon, however, remains a challenging endeavor. India's last attempt to land a spacecraft on the moon, during the 2019 Chandrayaan-2 mission, failed. And two commercial spacecraft have crash-landed on the lunar surface in recent times — one from Israel in 2019 and the other from Japan in April.

"There is no doubt that landing on the Moon is a real challenge," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement earlier this week.

"But the Moon offers great scientific reward, which is why we've seen so many recent attempts to visit the surface again. We're looking forward to all that we will learn in the future, including from India's Chandraayan-3 mission."

https://twitter.com/SenBillNelson/status/1694334078982439240?s=20

On Wednesday, Nelson also shared a congratulatory note on social media, saying, "congratulations to #India on being the 4th country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon. We're glad to be your partner on this mission!"

India is also a signatory of the United States' Artemis Accords, a document that outlines proposed rules of the road for future lunar exploration.

Russia and China have not signed the accords.

Australians are warned that now is the time to prepare for bushfire season, with an increased risk forecast for large parts of the country in the coming months.

The Australian Fire Authorities Council has released its seasonal bushfire outlook for spring.

It warns that the climate has shifted "significantly" since last spring, with the Bureau of Meteorology predicting above-average temperatures and below-average rainfall.

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But heavier rain in recent years has contributed to increased fuel growth around the country.

For spring 2023, the report identified an increased risk of bushfire for large areas of the Northern Territory, Queensland and New South Wales, as well as regions in Victoria and South Australia.

"Almost the entire country can expect drier and warmer conditions than normal this spring, so it is important for Australians be alert to local risks of bushfire over the coming months, regardless of their location," AFAC CEO Rob Webb said.

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"Fire is a regular part of the Australian landscape in spring. Wherever you live, work or travel, now is the time to plan and prepare.

"Understand your risk, know where you will get your information, and talk to your family about what you will do."

State and territory fire authorities will continue to monitor local conditions closely and undertake bushfire mitigation activities where possible, AFAC said.

The full outlook can be accessed online, but here is how each state and territory is shaping up.

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New South Wales

Large areas of central and northern NSW are expected to see an increased risk of fire in spring 2023.

Hazard reduction burns will be undertaken where permitted.

AFAC warns that regions hit by the Black Summer fires in 2019-20 have seen fuel regrowth, while there are high grass loads in the state's north.

High forest fuel loads are also evident in parts of the coast and ranges not affected by the 2019-20 fires.

These are particularly noticeable around the Sydney Basin, parts of the coast and north of the Hunter, AFAC said.

Victoria

Victoria can expect a warmer spring and earlier start to the high-risk fire season this year, following three years of lower fire-risk seasons as a result of La Niña conditions.

There is a high likelihood that the bushfire season of 2023-24 will commence earlier across much of central, western and northern Victoria.

People are urged to make a fire plan.

Queensland

The combination of drying fuels, forecast below-average rainfall and above-average temperatures is likely to bring "locally intense" bushfire activity.

Bushfires may be destructive across parts of Queensland as vegetation becomes flammable during the spring months.

South Australia

Above-average rainfall has rapidly switched to below-average rainfall and drying out of soil in many areas of the state.

Much greater fuel loads are present, requiring greater efforts for hazard reduction throughout spring before the hotter weather arrives.

SA is expecting well above-average maximum temperatures and above-average minimum temperatures in spring.

Western Australia

Winter rainfall has been below average for southern WA and above average for northern WA.

An above-average wet season in the Kimberley has delayed curing in the savanna grassland and subsequently the late dry season.

For southern WA in late spring, drier and warmer conditions may contribute to higher surface fuel availability and make bushfires more difficult to suppress.

Tasmania

Normal bushfire risk is predicted for spring in Tasmania.

Drier and warmer conditions, and an abundance of fuel will see bushfire risk increase towards summer.

Property owners are advised to prepare now.

Northern Territory

Drying conditions are predicted to impact the entire NT as El Niño continues to develop.

Average grass fuel loads and adequate fire scar coverage across the Top End, Katherine and Arnhem districts mean there is normal fire potential for these regions.

Above-average grass fuel loads, continuity of these fuels and high densities of invasive buffelgrass have increased the risk for wildfires to travel across vast distances during spring.

Australian Capital Territory

A normal bushfire risk during spring is expected for the ACT.

The long-range outlook for spring predicts drier and warmer conditions, raising the possibility of increased bush and grass fire risks for summer.

Fire agencies and land managers will conduct prescribed burning during spring to mitigate potential hazards.