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Kim Gibson should be sitting in her brand new, two-bedroom home by now.

Instead, she's trying to figure out where she is going to live.

Gibson, a 55-year-old Victorian business analyst, leapt at the chance to buy a $270,000 house-and-land package two years ago when plots were released for sale in a new Bendigo residential estate.

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"As soon as they announced the $25,000 HomeBuilder grant, I thought, 'well, this gives me a chance to buy something new'," she said.

"I was wanting to downsize into something smaller and get ready for retirement."

Gibson was originally told her townhouse within the Provenance Estate in the regional town of Huntly would be built by May 2021. Then, multiple delays pushed the date back to May this year.

With this date in mind, Gibson sold the Bendigo house she was living in with a long settlement that was finalised last month.

But, in a devastating twist, the construction firm Gibson and 20 other landowners signed a contract with to build their homes – Vita Building Group – announced two weeks ago it was pulling out of the project.

While the concrete slabs have been poured on some of the building lots, construction on most of them is yet to even begin.

As reported by 9news.com.au last week, the developer of the estate – Huntly Property Holdings – has suggested three options for the landowners.

The landowners could sell their plots – either back to Huntly or on the open market. 

The third option is to proceed with a new builder, but a surge in the cost of labour means the cheapest amount quoted would add an extra $120,000 to the price of each townhouse.

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Since publishing the article last week, more affected landowners, including Gibson, have come forward to share their heartbreak and frustration at the news.

Gibson is currently in South Africa visiting family and friends, but says she does not know what she will do when she gets back to Australia next week.

"I've been left homeless," she said.

"I'm going to stay with a friend for a little while, but I can't expect to do that for months and months."

Adding to Gibson's anguish is the fact that two of her nieces – both first home buyers aged in their mid twenties – also bought into the estate after she told them of the opportunity.

"I feel awful because I'm the one that said I'm going to buy this, wouldn't it be great if we bought three in a row?" 

"I mean, it was the only opportunity you would ever have for three family members to purchase three little houses in a row.

"It's been extremely stressful, watching it unfold. 

"We've definitely been left in the lurch, but it's just a sick feeling in your stomach because now you've got to try and decide what to do." 

In a letter sent to the landowners on June 2, Vita Building Group said their decision to pull out of the project was due to insurance troubles as well as rising construction and labour costs.

"Unfortunately, we are not confident that we can secure the domestic building insurance required to proceed with the proposed construction of the townhouse as we cannot satisfy the financial and technical requirements of the insurer," the letter said.

"Our position is further complicated by the stress being placed on the participants in the building industry associated with the rising cost and shortage of labour and materials."

9news.com.au has contacted Vita Building Group for comment but has not received a response.

In a statement issued through its lawyers last week, Huntly said: "Our client and our office have (on an urgent basis) been endeavouring to seek further updates from Vita and its solicitor, and have also been requesting that Vita directly provide clarity to lot owners in respect of the refund of deposits and timing for such payments, as well as clarifying Vita's intentions in respect of any lots where construction has actually commenced.

"It is our client's intention to continue to assist and work with lot owners to achieve the best possible outcome given the circumstances."

Surging costs for raw materials, worker shortages, supply chain delays and interest rate rises have all combined to fuel a national construction industry crisis.

Over the past year, construction giants like Probuild, Condev and Privium Group have all folded, while abandoned projects are leaving aspiring homeowners financially crippled and in the lurch.

Steven Chagas is another Provenance Estate landowner who says he has been left gutted by the stalled project in Bendigo.

"In the time that I have been waiting for this house to be built I proposed to my wife, we then got married, my wife became pregnant and now our first child is four months old," he said.

The couple bought the house and land package with the help of two grants, the $20,000 First Home Owner grant for new homes in regional Victoria and the $25,000 HomeBuilder grant.

Chagas said the advice he received from the State Revenue Office was that he would lose the HomeBuilder grant if he signed a contract with a new builder.

Paying an extra $120,000 on the cost of their home would be extremely difficult, he said.

"Simply put, we can't afford it. And if we don't build, I believe two years from settlement, which is 14 months from now, we lose the First Home Owner Grant and we'd have to pay back the stamp duty concession as well," he said.

Chagas said he and his wife are still renting the same place they were two years ago, while paying an interest only mortgage on the land they owned.

"It's been very stressful, on top of having our firstborn and everything else," he said.

Contact reporter Emily McPherson at em********@******om.au.

Colombia has found two shipwrecks, near the legendary San Jose galleon, sunk 300 years ago and believed to be carrying treasures worth billions of dollars in today's money.

President Ivan Duque said this week that the shipwrecks, which had not been reported, correspond to the colonial and republican periods, according to a preliminary analysis.

"Although this heritage is submerged … it has all the guarantees of protection based on thousands of photos that were taken at depths of more than 950 metres," said Duque while showing images of the vessels.

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"Thanks to that, a reconstruction was made of the entire morphological map of the area where this shipwreck is located."

Colombia strengthened its underwater exploration capabilities after the San Jose galleon was found in 2015, still unrecovered, which is presumed to contain treasures and has been the subject of a legal battle with other countries such as Spain over extraction rights.

The US maritime exploration company that claimed it first found the wreck in 1981 estimated in 2015 the value of its contents was worth $US17 billion ($23 billion).

With a remote exploration vehicle, the Colombian Navy approached the wreck and verified that "it has not been intervened" by humans.

"All the treasures and elements found there are protected and will continue to be so," said Admiral Gabriel Pérez Garcés, commander of the Navy.

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The Colombian government was able to identify and photograph swords, Chinese crockery and cannons from the galleon. The latter would have been manufactured in 1655 in the Spanish cities of Seville and Cádiz.

Also found were some gold objects, such as an ingot and macuquinas (coins) of eight reales.

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The Colombian Navy has indications that there could be other shipwrecks in the area where the San Jose galleon is located.

"We will continue working in the future to be able to explore more than 13 sites that could have more information and be the site of a particular shipwreck," said the general maritime director, José Amézquita García.

The San Jose was sunk in June 1708 near the Islas del Rosario, off Colombia's Caribbean coast, during combat with British ships attempting to take its cargo, as part of the War of Spanish Succession.

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The galleon was the main ship in a treasure fleet carrying gold, silver and other valuable items from Spain's American colonies to King Philip V.

Only a handful of the ship's crew of 600 survived when the San Jose sank.

Actor Matthew McConaughey delivered impassioned and at-times emotional remarks at the White House press briefing on Tuesday, telling the stories of those who died in the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and urging more action on gun control.

McConaughey, a Uvalde native, said he and his wife, Camila Alves, spent most of the past week with the families of those who were killed in his hometown. He showed pictures of their artwork and brought to the briefing room the green Converse shoes that one girl wore every day that were used to identify her body after the shooting. She had drawn a heart on one of the shoes.

He said he needed to tell their stories to show how action needed to be taken to honour the lives of the 19 children and two teachers killed at Robb Elementary School last month.

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"You know what every one of these parents wanted, what they asked us for? What every parent separately expressed in their own way to Camila and me? That they want their children's dreams to live on. That they want their children's dreams to continue, to accomplish something after they are gone. They want to make their loss of life matter," McConaughey said.

He said there was now a "window of opportunity" to enact meaningful gun legislation reform and called for universal background checks, raising the minimum age for purchasing an AR-15 to 21, a waiting period for purchasing AR-15s and the implementation of red flag laws.

"These are reasonable, practical, tactical regulations to our nation, states, communities, schools and homes. Responsible gun owners are fed up with the Second Amendment being abused and hijacked by some deranged individuals. These regulations are not a step back — they're a step forward for a civil society and, and the Second Amendment," McConaughey said in a roughly 20-minute speech from the podium.

READ MORE: Mourners say goodbye to Uvalde teacher and her husband

The Academy Award-winning actor met briefly with President Joe Biden before appearing at the podium, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

McConaughey spoke in great detail about the children and what dreams they held before they were killed — one wanted to be a marine biologist, one had been preparing to read a Bible verse at church the next week, another wanted to go to art school in Paris.

"You could feel the shock in the town. You could feel the pain, the denial, the disillusion, anger, blame, sadness, loss of lives, dreams halted," he said.

McConaughey said, "Due to the exceptionally large exit wounds of an AR-15 rifle, most of the bodies so mutilated that only DNA test or green converse could identify them. Many children were left not only dead but hollow. So, yes, counsellors are going to be needed in Uvalde for a long time."

"We got to take a sober, humble, and honest look in the mirror and rebrand ourselves based on what we truly value. What we truly value. We got to get some real courage and honour our immortal obligations instead of our party affiliations," McConaughey said.

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He continued, "Enough with the counterpunching. Enough of the invalidation of the other side. Let's come to the common table that represents the American people. Find a middle ground, the place where most of us Americans live anyway. Especially on this issue. Because I promise you, America, you and me, we are not as divided as we are being told we are."

McConaughey held meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill earlier in the day to discuss gun reform legislation

The Dallas Buyers Club actor publicly weighed a run for governor in Texas last year but ultimately ruled one out — for now. He said it was "a path that I'm choosing not to take at this moment."

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McConaughey told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday he hoped he was making progress in his meetings with lawmakers. He had left a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and was heading to another meeting with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

The President earlier on Tuesday met with Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who is leading bipartisan negotiations on gun reform. Murphy told reporters at the White House he met with the President for about half an hour and spoke about the outlines of the ongoing gun reform negotiations.

Murphy emphasised how much he appreciated Biden and the White House giving senators "space" to try and reach a deal, and said his goal remains to reach a deal by the end of this week.

While the odds of any sweeping reforms remain very steep, lawmakers have expressed optimism that a deal for a narrow and targeted bill could be reached as soon as the end of this week.

Jean-Pierre said Biden was "encouraged" by the Senate negotiations on gun control measures.

The President delivered an impassioned speech from the White House after the mass shooting at the Uvalde elementary school last month and ratcheted up the pressure on Congress to act.

He has called on Congress to implement stricter gun laws, including a ban on assault weapons, tougher background check laws and a higher minimum age of purchase.

Apple's 2022 Worldwide Developer Conference keynote revealed lots of exciting changes to the iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch and iPad – including the exciting ability to "undo" the sending of a message from one iPhone to another.

But there were plenty of other things that didn't attract the same level of headlines.

Here's five things I think were fascinating that we learned from today's Apple announcements.

Apple is planning to take over the car of the future

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Today almost every single new car on sale features a thing called Apple CarPlay.

It does nothing, until you pair your iPhone with the car and when you do the centre "infotainment" screen becomes an extension of your phone, with Apple iPhone apps like Maps, Messaging and even listening to Radio Station streaming are all at your fingertips safely and within the law.

Fast forward a few years, and that's going to be nothing in comparison to what Apple has planned.

In the next generation of Apple CarPlay, announced today by Apple – your iPhone will control every single screen in the car. From that infotainment screen, to your climate control and even the instrument cluster you see behind your steering wheel.

Your phone will communicate with the car to get your speed, RPM, fuel level, climate information, and it will all be presented to you on screens powered by your humble little phone.

It's a game-changer for the automotive industry, allowing a level of personalisation not seen before, and it appears this is the very secretive "Apple Car" project the team has been working on – the likelihood of Apple actually building their own car is minuscule, but this will be a game change in any car.

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Medication tracking

For many people, a daily dose of medication is routine, but sometimes you forget what you're due to take or when.

Apple is introducing a Medication tracker into the Apple Health app on Apple Watch and iPhone which discreetly helps you track and log both prescription medicines and vitamins.

Users can simply search for medication, or use the iPhone camera to scan your medication, and then set a schedule for reminders for each one.

Former Sydney Swan Craig Bolton works for Apple

He played 199 AFL Games, 170 of which were with the Sydney Swans, and was the Swans captain for two seasons, but after retiring in 2011 you might not have heard much from him.

Until today, where he appeared during Apple's keynote to talk about new features on the Apple Watch for fitness. His new title these days is "Senior Manager, Fitness Technologies" – so there you go!

Inspired by high performing athletes, new metrics will be added to the Apple Workout app on the Apple Watch to track the efficiency of your running.

New fitness features using advanced machine learning to track a whole range of features from just your wrist.

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Bolton also announced a new multi-sport workout type, which uses sensors to automatically switch between swimming, cycling and running.

Additionally, Craig used his time in the WWDC Keynote to announce that the Fitness app will be coming to iPhone – formerly something only available on Apple Watch.

Safety Centre – Protecting those at risk

In many relationships people are sharing their passwords and access to device settings and location with their partner, but in recognising that abusing this information is a key trait in some abusive relationships, Apple has worked to create a new "Safety Centre" which will be a powerful tool for victims of Domestic and Intimate partner violence.

The Safety Centre will allow you to revoke access you've granted to others, which will mean your location is not being shared and any apps settings can be reset.

This will also allow you to sign out of any other iCloud connected devices, which is a way of protecting your messages from anyone else's eyes.

It's a big step forward in restoring trust in the iPhone for those worried about who else might have access.

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Apple wants to get rid of Passwords forever

Admit it, you've used the same password on multiple websites, and frankly that puts you at a core risk of fraud and scams.

Apple is working to eliminate the password all together, though this will take some time, the company describes it as a "journey".

Essentially, Apple wants to use the Touch ID or Face ID on your existing devices to be the way you "authenticate" yourself on any website or app.

To do this, Apple's systems will work with websites and apps to create a new passkey, an encrypted code that you'll never see, cannot be used or shared without your biometric approval.

Very cool, a bit nerdy, but super safe.

This will take a few years, and a lot of co-operation between tech companies and web developers to really pull off.

The tiger shark stalks the shallows when suddenly a turtle appears in the murky depths, newly-released video shows.

The clip is part of world-first, Australian-led research, that allowed scientists to hunt through the eyes of these apex ocean predators.

In the study, published in Royal Society Interface, scientists deployed small cameras on animals in Western Australia's Ningaloo Reef, and combined this vision with their knowledge of sharks' eye structure to develop a virtual visual system for the animal.

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Doing so, lead to a startling find about tiger shark's hunting behaviour – and eye sight.

"When watching the raw camera footage of tiger sharks approaching sea turtles it seemed strange that often tiger sharks swam directly over a turtle sitting on the reef, a potentially easy meal," said lead author Dr Laura Ryan from the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University.

"However, when we look at the visual cues through the visual system of the tiger shark it is in fact extremely difficult to detect the turtle, and particularly when they remain motionless, blending into the background can allow them to camouflage themselves from attack."

"Tiger sharks have much lower visual acuity than humans and the video cameras. This means the sharks must rely on any form of movement from the sea turtles to be able to identify them."

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Ryan added turtles' best form of defence would be to remain still.

NSW's Department of Primary Industries (DPI) lists tiger sharks, along with great whites and bull sharks, as "target sharks".

These three species are most frequently involved in serious shark bites in NSW.

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However, the study shows tiger sharks' hunting pattern differs from great white sharks'.

"The picture that emerges through the eyes of the shark is one of almost slow-motion pursuit of a slow-moving prey, rather than a high velocity ambush we tend to think of when we see other big predators in action, such as white sharks," co-author Dr Samantha Andrzejaczek from the Hopkins Marine Station at Stanford University explained.

"This probably reflects the fact that these sharks inhabit environments that are generally nutrient poor, and these predators have to be careful not to expend too much energy in chasing prey to make a meal."

Co-author Dr Mark Meekan from the Australian Institute of Marine Science said they now want to apply their findings to other species.

"The animal borne cameras are now commonplace in the field of ecology, but few researchers have taken the next step to really consider the videos they provide in terms of what the subject animals can actually see," he said.

"This is the next frontier in this form of tagging."

Two Australian-built apps have taken home trophies at the Apple Design Awards which recognise outstanding apps developed for the Apple iPhone, iPad or Mac.

The two awards in 2022 take Australia's total winners to 11 in just twelve years, which is a testament to the strong App development community in Australia.

This year's winners join apps like Crossy Road, Streaks and Jetpack Joyride which are iconic previous winners.

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Both Wylde Flowers and Procreate won in the Inclusivity category due to their experience as provided for all people, no matter their background or abilities.

9News caught up exclusively with the developers immediately after the awards, which will add some weight to their luggage on their return home.

Claire d'Este, Chief Product officer at Procreate, a design and illustration app says their app enables all people.

"One of the things that's most different about it is that it's really easy to get started, like kids who've lost the love of creating feel quite comfortable getting back into it, but all the features are there if they want to go more professional," she said.

"Apple make amazing products, and we're all about making amazing products so it's a huge thing to be recognised by people we admire so much".

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Procreate's award recognised the accessibility that has been built into their app.

"It can mean just something as simple as when someone increase the text size that it increases, or for people who need VoiceOver (Apple's technology that reads the text and buttons on screen for those with visual impairment) instead of being able to read text that it's there, but we just kept trying to bring as many people in as we could".

Amanda Schofield from Wylde Flowers spoke about the recognition of inclusivity which was fundamental to their game.

"I think that Entertainment has a responsibility to paint the picture for how we want the world to loo," she said.

"By making an inclusive world where Gay Marriages are celebrated and Trans people are respected and live in harmony with everybody, it's something where people can pick up the app and say 'that's me, I see myself in this game'.

"People learn that that's ok. That's the world we want to head for and it's a good place".

READ MORE: How your iPhone will change in 2022

Apple recognised 12 apps this year with awards, app developers from around the world, so for Australia to have two winners is a huge endorsement of our app and development community.

You can download both apps from the Apple App Store: Wylde Flowers and Procreate.

Australia has ushered in the first week of winter with record-breaking lows and incredible snow dumps.

This morning has continued the trend with Sydney recording its coldest start to winter since 1989. The mercury dipped to a low of 7C.

The same low was felt in Melbourne, while Canberra woke to a frosty 0C, Hobart 3C and Adelaide 8C. Brisbane and Perth recorded lows of 9C and 10C respectively.

With one week of the season down and three more months looming, let's take a look at what winter has in store.

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It's unwelcome news for those hoping for an end to the rain that's plagued the south-east for months; "winter rainfall is likely to be above median for much of Australia", according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).

This above average rainfall will exacerbate the risk of flash flooding across the south east as soil catchments are saturated.

Below median falls will be felt across south-western Australia, and western Tasmania, the Bureau added.

The rain is being driven by the La Niña weather phenomenon, which will "slowly weaken" over the coming months.

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"Compared to two weeks ago, tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures have warmed, particularly in the western half of the tropical Pacific, returning to near-average values," BoM said.

"However, some atmospheric indicators continue to show a La Niña signal."

This end of the rain, and La Niña, is also being hampered by the "likely" formation of a negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).

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"A negative IOD increases the chances of above average winter–spring rainfall for much of Australia," BoM said.

"It also increases the chances of warmer days and nights for northern Australia."

The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is currently neutral.

While the south-east has been gripped by extreme cold this week, the BoM predicts warmer than average minimum temperatures for much of Australia, as well as warmer than average nights.

There are exceptions to this; cooler than average days are predicted for central and inland areas.

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