A former Queensland mayor has gone from a "rooster to a feather duster" after being charged by the state's corruption watchdog, a court has heard.

Luke Smith, 53, may leave the state to move on from misconduct offences, his barrister Jeffrey Hunter said.

The former Logan City Council mayor, whose full name is Timothy Luke Smith, was charged five years ago, following a Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) probe.

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He will be sentenced by Judge David Kent in Brisbane District Court on Friday.

Smith has pleaded guilty to receipt of a secret commission, failing to update his register of interests and misconduct in public office.

All of the offences occurred while he was Logan mayor.

His barrister has detailed how Smith's life had changed since the CCC charges.

Smith is "teetering on the brink of bankruptcy" after his family home was sold and his marriage failed.

He has had stints as a car detailer and security officer.

Smith – who has dealt with alcohol and mental health problems – currently lives at his brother's house.

"The fact that he held that high office, he's really gone from, I'll use the expression, rooster to a feather duster," Hunter said at Thursday's sentencing hearing.

"This has been personally catastrophic for him."

Hunter said he had noticed a marked shift in Smith with the long-running legal matter now approaching an end, but noted that moving on may involve his client leaving the state.

Regarding the secret commission charge, crown prosecutor Mark Green said Smith "acted corruptly" when he received a luxury 7.5m boat from a political donor in 2016.

The donor was a director of SKL Cables, which had submitted a development application to Logan Council for a 15-storey building at Springwood.

The council's building height restriction is 10 storeys.

It is alleged Smith obtained the $95,000 boat to progress the development approval for the building.

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On Thursday, the court heard Smith had regularly met with SKL Cables directors discussing the development, telling one he "had the (council) votes for something that would assist the application".

In August 2016, Smith asked an SKL director whether he could buy a colleague's powerboat and was told he could "use it" but not purchase it.

The same month the boat was transferred over to Smith, who also paid insurance, repairs and storage for the vessel.

Smith later sold the boat for $39,000, spending $19,000 with the rest kept in his account.

"The defendant did not pay a purchase price for the boat at any stage before the boat was sold," Green said.

Smith never declared the boat on his register of interests as required.

After giving evidence at a June 2017 CCC hearing into councillor misconduct allegations, Smith rang an SKL Cables director and told them he could no longer be involved in "all this", Green said.

The misconduct charge relates to allegations Smith interfered in the recruitment of Logan Council director Jane Frawley between June and July 2017.

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The long-awaited space role-playing game by Bethesda has finally received a release date.

In a Bethesda video released on Thursday morning, the game's release date was revealed as September 6.

Studio head Todd Howard features in the clip, speaking to the scale of the project and his excitement to show us more.

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Gamers also received a tiny glimpse of fresh gameplay.

Before the game's big release, we can expect a Starfield Direct, a specific showcase dedicated to all things Starfield, on June 11.

Starfield is releasing on September 6, 2023 on Xbox Series X|S and PC.

Kapiti Coast weavers are teaching local council about native plant care.

This is the fourth case of meningococcal disease in Canterbury this year.

The man was drunk at the time and claimed he was lonely.

An Aussie farm has started tracking its chickens' steps to make sure people know how "free and healthy" their chooks really are.

The chickens at Honest Eggs Co near Castlemaine in Victoria are fitted with a 'FitChix' tracker to count their steps, which works similarly to the fitness watches popular with people.

Data shows the farm's chooks walk an average of over 21,000 steps in 12 hours – which is almost three times more than the average Australian. 

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Honest Eggs use regenerative egg farming, which means their hens are moved every week to fresh pasture.

Co-founder Paul Righetti said the data gives consumers clarity about how active the chickens are, as well as helping farmers understand how they behave.

"We want to change egg farming for the better. In the past there has been some confusion about the industry," Righetti said.

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"We want Australians to know that with regenerative farm eggs, you are purchasing both award-winning eggs while also supporting the natural regeneration of farming land."

'FitChix' branded egg cartons will be available to purchase in all supermarkets across New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and the ACT from March 13.

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The United States Air Force has released new images of its advanced nuclear stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider.

The aircraft, capable of carrying nuclear and conventional weapons, has been developed by the air force and US aviation manufacturer Northrop Grumman.

It will form the backbone of the future for US air power in the decades ahead.

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The aircraft was unveiled to much fanfare in December 2022, the first time in more than 30 years a new US bomber has been publicly launched.

Pentagon officials said this week the Raider is scheduled to begin test flights later this year.

"The B-21, which we rolled out just a few months ago, will be the centrepiece for our Global Strike family of systems," US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said at an industry event in Denver, Colorado, on Wednesday.

"The B-21 is projected to begin flight tests later this calendar year. Our goal is to get into production as quickly as possible with acceptable concurrency risk … overlapping some testing production."

Northrop Grumman said last year the Raider will help American pilots "penetrate the toughest defences for precision strikes anywhere in the world."

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Six bombers are currently under production, the company said.

After adjustments for inflation, the cost of each aircraft, including training materials, support equipment and other components of the bomber, is US$692 million ($1.1 billion), according to an estimate last year.

The US Air Force plans to purchase at least 100 of the stealth bombers.

The US Congressional Budget Office estimated the aircraft will cost $1.2 trillion (A$1.77 trillion) through to 2046.

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Australian property values have seen their largest decline on record while rental values continue to climb amid low vacancies, according to new data.

CoreLogic has revealed home values dropped by 7.9 per cent in the past year and as interest rates continue to rise, the slump may not be over yet.

"The combined value of residential real estate in Australia rose to $9.3 trillion at the end of February, from $9.2 trillion in the previous month but well below the peak of $10 trillion in April 2022," Corelogic's head of research Eliza Owen said.

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But even though property prices have plummeted in the past year, the rate of decline has slowed over the past month.

It's not all bad news across Australia as regional South Australian properties trended upwards, by 13.2 per cent, in the past 12 months.

It was also welcome news for potential homebuyers in the often unreachable Sydney market, with home values decreasing by 13.4 per cent.

It comes as the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) hiked interest rates for the 10th consecutive time to 3.6 per cent as the central bank battles inflation.

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Yesterday, RBA Governor Philip Lowe flagged there may be a pause in interest rate rises in the near future as inflation begins to respond to the monetary policy tightening.

But his message was echoed in the Corelogic data released today: the property market is slumping in response to fiscal tightening.

"Housing prices have also been declining, although it is difficult to determine the effect of this on spending as there had earlier been a large run-up in prices," he said during the Australian Financial Review's Business Summit.

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It's not just property values that have been impacted in the past 12 months, with rent values also skyrocketing.

"Annual growth in rent values held steady on the previous month in February, at 10.1 per cent," Owen said.

"Annual growth in Australian rent values was 10.2 per cent in the 12 months to December, a record high.

"The most rapid annual rise is evident in unit rents across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, where rents have increased around 14 to 17 per cent annually."

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It is indicative of the struggles Australians are facing with the rental market with low vacancies and high prices.

Lowe also emphasised the supply and demand dilemma for renters.

"Rents are also rising rapidly, with rental vacancy rates at very low levels in many parts of the country," Lowe said.

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An Auckland woman said she is unable to pay her bills after eight lots of $278 (NZ$300) – a total of $2225 – were deducted from her bank account for 'Skycouches' on Air New Zealand flights she is not booked on.

Emily Cordwell had booked return flights for her family to London over the upcoming winter and needed to change the return journeys due to work commitments, which could only be done by calling the airline.

After waiting on hold for three-and-a-half hours last Thursday, she was told she could either pay $2780 extra to move the flights or put them into credit.

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Needing to discuss the situation with her husband, she said she would have to call back – leading to a four-hour wait on hold that evening.

"I was walking around with the phone while putting my kids to bed, cooking dinner. It was just ridiculous," she said.

When she finally got though, her nearly $11,127 worth of flights were put into credit so she could book new ones. She thought the problem had been solved but, looking back, said "that's where they really started".

Finding new flights on the Air New Zealand website, she went through the booking process, opted to pay for them using her credit, and agreed for her credit card to be charged $278 for a Skycouch, which is used to turn a row of economy seats into a "couch" after take-off.

She then received an error message saying the fares or flights she had selected were no longer available as they had been sold out since she made her selection, and that her payment had not been processed.

She tried to book the flights four more times, but received the same message on each occasion.

After trying twice more the following morning, she checked her bank account online and was "shocked" to find that $278 had been deducted from her account eight times for the Skycouches, plus $315 in fees.

While the $2540 transactions show as pending on her bank account, they have been deducted from her balance, leaving her more than $742 overdrawn and unable to pay for things, including bills.

An Air New Zealand spokesperson said Cordwell's initial Skycouch booking likely failed because the flights she had selected were no longer available.

"This can happen when partner airlines are included in the booking – there can be a slight delay in the back end to update availability. The website then invited them to try again – which the customer did, multiple times. Each time the customer attempted to book – and it failed – an authentication request was taken."

The spokesperson said the authentication requests were immediately reversed when the booking failed, meaning Air New Zealand is not holding the money.

"Authentication requests usually take about a week to drop off a credit card on their own," she said, adding that this is the case for New Zealand cards, but not necessarily for UK-issued cards like Cordwell's.

"We understand this isn't an ideal scenario and we're sorry this customer is currently experiencing this," she said.

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Cordwell said she had contacted her bank about the situation and been told that she needed to sort it out with Air New Zealand.

She had opted to receive a call-back from Air New Zealand on Friday, and said she received a voicemail from a staff member at about 1pm saying "hello" a couple of times before hanging up.

"And they never tried to call me again. So I got on the phone to them again on Friday afternoon and I spent four hours on hold while I picked the kids up from school, cooked the dinner, all that kind of stuff."

When she was giving the kids a bath, she accidentally ended the call.

"I actually cried at that point because I'd had all that money taken out, I had no flights, and I'd been on the phone for 12 hours at that point. I just couldn't believe it."

When she tried again at about 5.30am on Saturday morning, getting through after an hour, she said a "helpful" staff member offered to research flights for her and call her back.

Later that day, the staff member rang to say she had found suitable flights, and Cordwell booked them with her over the phone, attracting a $222 fee for doing so.

Cordwell said the staff member was unable to help Cordwell with the Skycouch transactions, telling her they would take drop off her account within eight to 10 business days.

"But what am I supposed to do for the 10 days?", Cordwell asked. "I am overdrawn and being charged overdraft fees. How am I supposed to pay for things?"

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This article first appeared on Stuff and is republished here with permission.

The Optus boss claims none of the customers who had their data breached has fallen victim to misuse of their exposed details.

Kelly Bayer Rosmarin told the Australian Financial Review's Business Summit the premeditated and "highly motivated" attack shouldn't have breached the company's defences.

"But given how inevitable these types of attacks are, I'm relieved we were able to act fast to ensure that ultimately the data that was exposed was not successfully used to harm any customers," she said.

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Nearly 10 million Australians had personal data exposed in the hack last October but 2.8 million of those were seriously impacted with passport, drivers licence and Medicare numbers breached.

But despite the large number of customers impacted, Bayer Rosmarin claimed no customers had fallen victim to the misuse of their data.

"Not a single customer has suffered any financial loss or fallen victim to a crime through misuse of the data," she said.

"This outcome should reassure all of us about what a strong and fast and collaborative response can achieve."

Optus is facing class action complaints following the breach and several government reviews.

The hack was one of many late last year, including health insurer Medibank, and sparked the federal government to introduce heft fines for major corporations who are subject to serious or repeated breaches.

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Bayer Rosmarin claims the telco did everything it could to protect customers and be transparent about the hack.

"We were being transparent, open and honest. We were apologetic and accountable," she said.

"We did more than any other company in a cyberattack before had done, and we did it much quicker.

She said the company sent out 16 million customer communications with 110 bespoke messages for different cohorts.

"There were a couple of messages that, when you read them, you thought: 'Oh, this looks like it's been written by someone who hasn't slept in four days'," she said.

"So I wish every single one of those 110 communications had been to our usual level of quality."

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Bayer Rosmarin added the telco is looking towards the future and implementing further protections to their cyber security.

She said the company has introduced a bug bounty program and is undergoing cyber-attack simulations.

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