Abnormally warm and dry weather is forecast for the end of 2023, but as fires rage overseas, Weatherzone believes rainfall in recent years could help offset some of the harsh conditions during Australia's bushfire season.

"Most forecast models are predicting El Niño and a positive IOD during the second half of 2023," Weatherzone meteorologist Ashleigh Lange said.

"If these climate drivers develop, they will promote abnormally warm and dry weather in Australia, which is likely to increase the risk of fires."

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While Australia's worst bushfire seasons have typically been due to hot and dry weather, they have also come on the back of years of drought.

Fortunately for bushfire season, Australia has just experienced three consecutive La Niña events between 2020 and 2023, meaning most of the country has had above average rainfall.

Some areas in NSW have had their highest rainfall on record according to data from the Bureau of Meterology.

The above average rainfall over the past three years has led to more green vegetation across the continent, and higher soil moisture across central and northern Australia, Lange said.

The maps below show how much more green vegetation there is in Australia now, compared to 2019, when the devastating Black Summer bushfire season occurred.

READ MORE: Grieving mum thanks locals after sons killed in house fire

Lange said Australia's wet and green conditions "should help offset" the influence of the warm and dry weather this fire season.

"While some parts of Australia may see an active fire season this spring and summer, it is unlikely to match the severity of the 2019-20 Black Summer."

Detroit musician Sixto Rodriguez, the subject of the documentary 'Searching for Sugar Man' – which won the 2013 best documentary Academy Award – has died, according to an announcement on his official website.

The following statement, posted on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) was included in the notice:

"It is with great sadness that we at Sugarman.org announce that Sixto Diaz Rodriguez has passed away earlier today. We extend our most heartfelt condolences to his daughters – Sandra, Eva and Regan – and to all his family. Rodriguez was 81 years old. May His Dear Soul Rest In Peace."

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No cause of death was indicated.

Originally a somewhat obscure figure of the 1970s Detroit folk music scene, Rodriguez had no idea that his music was incredibly popular in South Africa, where he was "as famous as the Beatles or the Rolling Stones," CNN's Nadia Bilchik said in 2013 just ahead of the Oscars ceremony.

She added that he "didn't know that he was absolutely a cult figure in South Africa."

With lyrics such as "The system's gonna fall soon, to an angry young tune," Rodriguez unwittingly became the voice of the anti-Apartheid struggle in the 1970s, even as his records flopped in his own country.

The 2012 documentary 'Searching for Sugar Man', directed by the late Malik Bendjelloul, documented the search for Rodriguez.

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Going on to win the best documentary Oscar the following year, the film helped catapult Rodriguez from obscurity to new heights of fame.

"A man who lives his whole life in Detroit working as a construction worker, without knowing that, at the very same time, he's more famous than Elvis Presley in another part of the world," Bendjelloul told CNN in 2012.

"I thought it was the most beautiful story I've ever heard in my life."

The film got its title from 'Sugar Man', a 1970 song by Rodriguez about a drug peddler.

"It was this lost masterpiece, like a Cinderella story, a fairy tale," Bendjelloul said of Rodriguez's life.

"I never heard anything like that. A story that was so rich and true."

Of his initial preference to stay out of the spotlight, Mike Theodore, who coproduced Rodriguez's 1970 debut album, told the Detroit Free Press, "His point of view was always: 'Don't watch me — listen to what I'm saying.'"

According to Le Monde, as of last year Rodriguez was blind, no longer playing music and was still living in the same house in Detroit.

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When Jason Bryce realised his credit card payments were making it hard to track his spending, he took what many would consider to be a radical step.

"I was tap, tap, tapping my card to buy everything and I lost control of my budget – so I just decided not to do it anymore," Bryce said. 

The Melbourne man took the credit cards out of his wallet and got rid of all the apps and payment systems set up on his phone. 

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Instead, Bryce used cash everywhere he went.

"I used to live on the cash that was in my pocket, and I did this for almost two years – from 2020 to 2022," he said.

It was during the pandemic and Bryce found himself swimming against the tide as people and businesses shifted away from cash over hygiene fears and bought more goods remotely online.

There were some frustrations along the way, Bryce admitted, such as when his local Woolworths Metro store stopped taking cash for a few months at the height of the pandemic.

However, Bryce said he soon learned the few retailers he needed to avoid, and his commitment to cash also paid off in some unexpected ways.

"One thing that happened was that I lost weight," Bryce said.

"I found I ate better, because I wasn't just tapping to pay for that packet of chips. I had to go for extra money and I realised I didn't want to hand over the money for junk food."

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His experience, and the anti-cash sentiment expressed during the pandemic, led Bryce to found Cash Welcome, a group that advocates against a cashless society.

An online petition started by Bryce, calling for the Federal Government to legislate the right for Australians to buy essentials, such as food, with cash has so far attracted more than 120,000 signatures.

In Australia, there are currently no laws to stop businesses from refusing to accept cash.

According to the Reserve Bank of Australia, businesses are able to choose whether to accept cash or card payments, or both.

Bryce said it was a common misconception that businesses had to accept cash payments because it was "legal tender".

"Nobody understands what the rules are. The public thinks they have the right to pay with cash," he said.

"There are people posting videos on TikTok of disputes going on at the point of sale over whether they can pay with cash – it's chaos."

Bryce's petition is part of a wider pro-cash movement that appears to be gathering pace online. 

Some businesses that have made the decision to go cashless are now finding themselves on the receiving end of social media-led backlashes and boycotts from angry customers.

The "Call out Cashless Businesses" group on Facebook, which was started by Melbourne man Mike Palmer, has swelled to almost 45,000 members in the space of three months.

Last month, pro-cash advocates declared the first week of July a "pay by cash" week, encouraging customers to ditch their credit and debit cards.

How did the 'pro-cash' movement start?

Palmer told 9news.com.au the roots of the pro-cash movement could be traced back to the early days of the pandemic when people found their lives being controlled in unprecedented ways. 

"This is just people saying, 'Hey, I have a right to pay with cash and I want to pay with cash and no-one can tell me otherwise'." 

"It's all about giving people the choice. If businesses want to make tap-and-go payments available for those who prefer to use that method, go ahead. But they should also be accepting cash."

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Although there could be a temptation to view the pro-cash movement as being fuelled by paranoia, or pandemic-era conspiracy theories, Bryce said this was far from the case.

Many of the reasons he and others advocated for the retention of a cash payment system were practical, he said.

As well as cash being a great budgeting tool, there were also the surcharges customers copped when using credit cards to consider, Bryce said.

The charges people pay when tapping electronically can vary depending on the payment method used.

The Reserve Bank of Australia estimates the average costs for Eftpos to be less than 0.5 per cent, Visa and Mastercard debit between 0.5 per cent and 1 per cent, and Visa and Mastercard credit between 1 per cent and 1.5 per cent.

"The motivation is purely financial – there's no big conspiracy," Bryce said. 

"Cash lets you take control of your budget and stop paying fees every time you spend money.

"So if I go out in the morning, with my $50 note, and I pay for something, that $50 goes to somebody else. It's still $50 – nobody's taken any slice out of the pie, nobody's taken 1.5 per cent."

Bryce's arguments have been supported by finance experts, who say while it may not be as convenient, there are significant benefits that can come from using cash.

Earlier this year, finance commentator Nicole Pederson-McKinnon wrote an article for The Sydney Morning Herald revealing she cut her spending by 35 per cent, simply by using cash for all of her purchases.

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Money expert Joel Gibson said the results were not surprising.

"The reality is when you use cash you're much more conscious of what you're spending," he said.

Gibson said the popularity of "cash stuffing" on social media platforms like TikTok, in which people use envelopes of cash to budget for specific expenses, showed how useful the technique could be. 

"I don't think that means we should all be using cash all the time, but I think people certainly have a right if they want to use cash as a money-saving strategy to continue to do so," he said.

Is cash really going to disappear?

There is no doubt the number of people using cash is dwindling – and the pandemic has accelerated that trend.

The percentage of payments made with cash in Australia plunged to 13 per cent in 2022, the latest RBA consumer payment behaviour survey, published in June, shows.

The data shows the percentage of cash payments was slashed by more than half in a period of three years, down from 27 per cent in 2019. 

Meanwhile, an additional RBA survey, released last month, shows the number of notes in circulation has officially marked a turning point, declining for the first time since dollars and cents were introduced in 1966.

READ MORE: Man faces court charged with Perth mum's 'horrific' murder

However, a March 2023 RBA review of the country's cash cycle found it was still functioning "adequately", despite the plunge in cash use leading to some vulnerabilities in the system.

The review noted a decline in the number of ATMs and bank branches had not yet increased the distance most people need to travel to access cash by a significant amount, but that could change if more were taken out of the equation.

More businesses do appear to be going cashless, with RBA surveys showing cash acceptance was lower than before the pandemic.  However, a high majority of businesses are still taking cash. 

Things look a little less certain going forward.

An RBA survey of businesses in April 2022 found half that were accepting cash planned to discourage its use in the future.

Business owners cited hygiene concerns, the risk of theft and mishandling, cash handling costs, and difficulty for businesses in accessing cash as reasons for considering the change.

For now, the RBA appears to be adopting a watch-and-wait stance, saying it will "continue to monitor these trends".

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Fans thronged the streets of Sinéad O'Connor's former hometown in Ireland to bid farewell to the gifted singer as her funeral procession passed by following a private memorial service.

A vintage VW camper van with rooftop speakers blasting Bob Marley's song Natural Mystic led a hearse at walking pace through a thick crowd of admirers along the waterfront in Bray. O'Connor said she loved Marley's music.

Devotees of O'Connor's singing and those touched by her sometimes-troubled life tossed roses and other flowers on the hearse.

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A group that had been waiting for well over an hour outside O'Connor's former home, singing her songs at times, began to clap as four police officers on motorcycles leading the cortege approached and the procession came to a halt.

They snapped photos through the windows of the hearse where her coffin was dwarfed by a pile of blue hydrangeas and pink roses.

Ruth O'Shea, who had come to the coastal town of Bray, south of Dublin, with her two daughters, became teary as she spoke of O'Connor's significance, saying she had "meant the world" to her.

"She was so rebellious and empowering and inspiring, and my mother hated me listening to her music," O'Shea said.

"She was just brilliant. Brilliant — I loved her, and then the kids, I suppose by osmosis because I played her when they were both growing up, they'd go, 'Oh God, mom's listening to Sinead O'Connor, she's obviously had a rough day'.

"She just gave me hope. And I just loved her, I loved her."

READ MORE: NSW mother's death sparks calls for public inquiry

O'Connor, 56, was found unresponsive at her London home on July 26. Police have not shared a cause of death, though they said her death was not suspicious.

O'Connor's family had invited the public to pay their respects during the funeral procession.

"Sinead loved living in Bray and the people in it," her family said in a statement.

"With this procession, her family would like to acknowledge the outpouring of love for her from the people of Wicklow (county) and beyond, since she left … to go to another place."

Fans tucked handwritten notes and flowers behind a chain wrapped around a granite post at the entrance to her former home, thanking her for sharing her voice and her music.

READ MORE: Perth mum killed in 'horrific' suspected domestic violence attack

One sign listed causes that the singer had expressed support for, including welcoming refugees.

"Thanks for your short special life," one note read. "Gone too soon."

O'Connor, a multi-octave mezzo soprano of extraordinary emotional range who was recognisable by her shaved head, began her career singing on the streets of Dublin and soon rose to international fame.

She became a sensation in 1990 with her cover of Prince's ballad Nothing Compares 2 U, which topped charts from Europe to Australia.

She was a critic of the Roman Catholic Church well before allegations of sexual abuse were widely reported.

READ MORE: Sydney employee sacked after computer tracked while working from home 

She made headlines in October 1992 when she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II while appearing on NBC's Saturday Night Live and denounced the church as the enemy.

She was public about her struggles with mental illness.

When her teenage son Shane died by suicide last year, O'Connor tweeted there was "no point living without him" and she was soon hospitalised.

Her final tweet, sent July 17, read "For all mothers of Suicided children" and linked to a Tibetan compassion mantra.

Since her death, celebrities have paid tribute to her, and ordinary people have shared acts of kindness she performed.

Crisis support is available from Lifeline on 13 11 14.

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WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains an image of a person who has died.

A 37-year-old man has appeared in court charged with the murder of his former partner in what police have described as a confronting case of alleged domestic violence.

Tiffany Woodley was found dead at a house in Perth on Monday night with her alleged killer arrested at the property.

The 35-year-old mother had suffered horrific injuries but police did not believe a weapon was involved.

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On Wednesday, Peter Damjanovic appeared in Perth Magistrates Court charged with Woodley's murder.

He was not required to enter a plea and was remanded in custody to return to court on August 30.

On Tuesday, Inspector Geoff DeSanges said first responders were faced with a "horrific, confronting scene".

"A woman lost her life last night through extreme violence," he said.

"Violence of any nature, especially against women, children or other vulnerable victims is unacceptable.

"Family and domestic violence is a scourge in our community.

"This violence must stop, everyone has a right to feel safe, especially in their home."

DeSanges described Woodley's connection to her alleged killer as a complex domestic relationship.

He said the man had lived at the Bedford home "off and on over a period of time".

Members of Woodley's family were expected to speak at a media conference later on Wednesday.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

After the robbery, Tyrone Harrison assaulted a stranger and headbutted a police officer.

Ex-MP Andrew Laming says he will appeal a court decision to fine him for Facebook posts published ahead of the 2019 federal election after AEC court action.

The former Liberal National MP has been fined over social media posts he published in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election that appeared to have been written by someone else.

The Australian Electoral Commission took the Queenslander to the Federal Court accusing him of contravening commonwealth requirements by publishing material under a "Redland Hospital: Let's fight for fair funding" Facebook page without adequately disclosing his political links.

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The former member for Bowman was fined $20,000 and says he will immediately appeal.

In a judgment published on Wednesday, Justice Darryl Rangiah found Laming contravened the law by posting electoral materials on three dates without ensuring his name and the town or city in which he lives were notified.

One post stated its author was delighted by Laming's announcement of a hospital service funding boost, then claimed to "fact check" the claim before concluding the amount was slightly less.

"I infer Mr Laming thought that by pretending the post was written by someone else, his self-flattery is more likely to be accepted by viewers as true and his achievement admirable," Justice Rangiah said.

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One purpose of the post was to disseminate information about funding for the Redland Hospital in Laming's electorate while another was to promote himself.

This could be seen from Laming's deception in pretending the post – which praised himself for obtaining a funding boost – was objective as it was made by someone else.

"I am persuaded by the lengths he went to in perpetrating the deception that his predominant purpose was self-promotion," Justice Rangiah said.

Justice Rangiah found that post to be particularly serious.

"It was not merely a case of Mr Laming omitting to notify his name and relevant town or city, but a deliberate attempt to disguise the fact that he was its author," he said.

"Misleading conduct of that kind strikes at the core of the integrity of our electoral system."

Laming had argued the main purpose of posts was to criticise the Queensland government's funding of Redland Hospital.

Justice Rangiah found two of the five posts complained about by the commission were not in breach of the legislation.

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He said the matter had a lengthy and torturous history but by the time the trial started in September Laming had made some admissions.

It was not a case where contraventions occurred in a systemic or organised way and it was unlikely Laming would engage in similar conduct in future.

However, Laming had pretended posts had been published by someone else and the Facebook page concealed that he was its administrator.

The number of viewers of the posts was not large – six for one post and eight for another.

The third post was seen by 14 people with nine of those sharing it.

One post that Justice Rangiah found not electoral matter appeared to be an extract of a speech Laming made in parliament, while the other referred to the politician having "ripped Labor a new one over the Hospital".

He fined Dr Laming $10,000 for a post he regarded as especially serious and $5000 each for two others.

Laming told AAP he would immediately appeal the outcome that concerned three posts out of more than 100.

"The posts were factual and completely inadvertent," he said.

Laming was MP for the southeast Queensland seat of Bowman for nearly two decades but did not stand for re-election last year.

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Graphic content: The victim, 22, died after he was dumped at Takanini Medical Centre.

Police investigating the suspected mushroom poisoning deaths of three people and the serious illness of a fourth have spent the day combing a local tip after finding a food dehydrator.

Heather Wilkinson, her sister Gail Patterson, and Patterson's husband Don Patterson died after eating toxic wild mushrooms during a lunch in Leongatha, in Victoria's Gippsland region, on July 29.

A fourth person, Reverend Ian Wilkinson, who is a pastor at Korumburra Baptist Church and is Heather Wilkinson's husband, is fighting for life in hospital and awaiting a liver transplant after eating the same meal.

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Police are forensically testing the dehydrator, which was first seized from the Koonwarra transfer station.

9News understands the dehydrator was seized by police from a bin on Friday.

Detectives returned to the site today to speak with employees and ask for CCTV footage.

It's understood the two couples were dining at the home of Erin Patterson, the Pattersons' former daughter-in-law, when they were served the meal.

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In a social media post from June 2022, Erin's ex-husband Simon Patterson said he almost died last year from gut problems that left him in intensive care.

In the Facebook post, he revealed his family were asked to say goodbye to him twice in hospital due to fears he would not survive the gut illness, which required three emergency operations.

The post does not state the cause of his illness and there is no suggestion it is related to the current investigation.

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Homicide Detective Inspector Dean Thomas told media earlier this week police were yet to determine if the incident was suspicious.

Patterson was questioned by police but has been released without charge.

"She is (a suspect) because she cooked those mushrooms," Thomas said.

Police are testing the dehydrator, which was found at a local tip, to see whether it was used to prepare the meal.

Thomas said the matter is "very complex" but the symptoms suffered by the victims match those caused by death cap mushrooms.

Parishioners at the Korumburra Baptist Church gathered yesterday to pray for their beloved local pastor who is fighting for life in hospital.

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Anglican minister, Fran Grimes, who has worked closely with Ian Wilkinson, told Today the close-knit community was reeling.

"We haven't had a lot of the questions here in the community about, you know, 'how' and 'who' and all those things," she told Today.

"It's just a terrible tragedy that is here, and I think there's a lot of just wanting to love and care and support."

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The GP fell off the wagon following news of a family tragedy. He is now on home detention.