The penguin was found injured on the night of Sunday, September 28, but died soon after.

OPINION: Peters’ dog, Kobe, was caught up in last night’s incident.

The unsolved murders of three friends on an outback adventure almost five decades ago are being re-examined with information uncovered by cold case detectives.

Karen Edwards, 23, Tim Thomson, 31, and Gordon Twaddle, 21, disappeared on the trip of a lifetime in 1978 after leaving Alice Springs with their dog "Tristie".

Travelling on motorbikes, the three best friends planned to travel down Australia's east coast to spend Christmas with loved ones in Melbourne.

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They never made it.

Their journey ended in tragedy with the gruesome discovery of their bodies near a dry waterway in remote bushland at Spear Creek, 12 kilometres north of Mount Isa in October, 1978.

After almost 47 years to the day, family and friends returned to the Brisbane Coroners Court hoping for answers. 

An inquest in 1980 failed to provide closure, finding "unknown person or persons" were responsible for the triple murder. 

Coroner David O'Connell reopened the inquest today to explore the original evidence and information from a cold case investigation.

The last known sighting of the three friends was at the Moondarra Caravan Park in Mount Isa on October 5 when they were seen with an unidentified man driving a brown and white Toyota Land Cruiser. 

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Thomson's decomposing remains were later discovered by a couple out for a walk at Spear Creek on October 24, 1978, counsel assisting Amelia Hughes said. 

It would be another day before the remains of Edwards and Twaddle were found hidden nearby in a clump of Spinifex grass.

Post-mortems revealed all three had been executed with a bullet to the head fired from a .22 calibre weapon.

"When the bodies were first discovered, they were already in an advanced state of decomposition, and police were not able to identify them straight away," Hughes told the coroner. 

It was only after the police launched a nationwide appeal to identify a lady's watch found at the scene that authorities were able to identify Edwards through dental records. 

Forensic officers needed fingerprint evidence to positively identify Thomson and Twaddle. 

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The mystery deepened when Thomson's dog Tristie was found abandoned at the Mount Isa dump, along with their motorcycle helmets and personal belongings, hidden in a 44-gallon drum. 

Twaddle's motorcycle was abandoned at a Mount Isa service station with the keys still in the ignition, while Thomson's red BMW bike was discovered at the home of local man, Bruce John Preston.

Preston, who was also travelling around Australia in 1978, admitted stealing the BMW bike and was fined $300, but was not initially linked to the murders. 

Cold case detectives would eventually charge Preston with three counts of murder in 2019, only to drop the case in 2023. 

Preston has agreed to give evidence at the inquest. 

The hearing has accepted the cause of death findings that Edwards, Thomson and Twaddle had been shot in October 1978.

"We are satisfied that the person responsible for this heinous crime is a dark-haired, bearded man in the Toyota Land Cruiser station wagon who picked up the victims at the Lake Moondarra caravan park on the morning of October 5, 1978," Hughes read from the earlier findings.

"He probably shot them to death on the same date."

While the court has accepted the original finding, O'Connell will also take into account new material gathered by cold case detectives.

Edwards' brother said they had not given up hope of finally finding answers.

"We are satisfied with the investigation by the cold case detectives and are confident that the coroner will take that investigation into account," Barry Edwards told AAP.

A $250,000 reward issued in 2019 remains in place. 

The inquest has been set down for nine days and will hear from up to 40 witnesses as it traces the trio's outback journey and explores events at the Lake Moondarra caravan park.

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The federal government has unveiled new triple-zero laws after hauling multiple major telco bosses to Parliament House to address a string of serious outages.

The CEOs of Optus, Telstra and TPG arrived in Canberra this morning for a meeting with Communications Minister Anika Wells.

"I'm looking forward to seeing the minister, I'm sure it'll be a productive meeting," Optus CEO Stephen Rue said as he arrived.

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The meeting is the latest please-explain from the government to Optus following a serious outage in its emergency network system across four states, which led to the deaths of three people who were unable to contact triple-zero.

Telstra also suffered smaller outages shortly after.

Wells announced today that new rules will be introduced next, forcing real-time reporting of those emergency breakdowns.

Although there is already a triple-zero custodian, the new laws will strengthen it as a permanent, proactive guardian, allowing it to have more oversight into the emergency services network.

"The law in Australia is clear – if an outage occurs, telcos must make sure that triple zero calls still connect by being redirected to alternate mobile towers – that responsibility rests with them," Wells said.

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The government will introduce legislation to bolster powers for a triple-zero custodian, which will be able to demand information from telcos to monitor triple-zero performance, identify risks, respond quickly to outages and make improvements.

"We know Australians' confidence in triple zero has been shaken, and it's vital that it's rebuilt," Wells said.

"With these new powers for the triple zero custodian, Australians can be assured of more active and effective monitoring of this most vital of services to make sure it meets the community's needs." 

The new rules, which will come into effect on November 1, will also force telcos to test triple-zero calls during upgrades and maintenance.

"I think resilience is very important, obviously, emergency services are very important, so it was an excellent meeting," said Rue as he exited Parliament House.

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Police say they are confident they have done all they can in the search for missing four-year-old Gus Lamont and have revealed a footprint found in the search yesterday has been deemed unrelated to the investigation.

Gus was last seen playing on a mound of dirt about 5pm on Saturday, September 27 by his grandmother at the family's Oak Park Station homestead, about 43km from the town of Yunta in South Australia.

By 5.30pm, Gus – who has been described as shy but adventurous – had vanished and a full-scale ground and air search of the property and surrounding area was launched.

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SA Police Assistant Commissioner Ian Parrott said the search for Gus would be scaled back from today and the investigation would be managed by the Missing Persons Investigation Section.

"We are confident that we have done all we can to locate Gus within the search area," Parrott said.

"Despite our very best efforts to find Gus we have determined that the search will be scaled back from this afternoon."

Parrott said no evidence had been recovered in the search for Gus.

"At this point, no trace of Gus has been located," he said.

"No tangible pieces of evidence, such as footprints, a hat or clothing, have been located to identify any direction of travel to assist searchers."

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SA Police Deputy Commissioner Linda Williams confirmed a footprint discovered yesterday has been found to be unrelated to the missing four-year-old.

9News understand a footprint found 500m from the homestead by searchers last week, however, has not been ruled out of the investigation.

A "significant" aerial search using special drones with infrared technology was used on Friday and Saturday.

It is the same technology police used in the search for the remains of Julian Story in Port Lincoln.

"It's quite complex technology, so the results will take some time to work through, but police will investigate any findings through further searches," police said today.

Police said officers may return to the property once the results of the drone mission are finalised.

Over the past 48 hours, the search for Gus shifted to a recovery mission.

Police spoke to the family last week to prepare them for the grim likelihood Gus has not survived.

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"On Tuesday night senior police spoke to Gus' family and prepared them for the fact that Gus may not have survived due to the passage of time, his age and the nature of the terrain he is missing in," Parrott added.

"This assessment was based on medical evidence from a doctor who is recognised by the Australian rescue authorities as an expert opinion on time frame for survival.

"While those involved in the search have been hoping for a miracle, over the past 48 hours the search has shifted to a recovery operation."

Police continue to investigate Gus' disappearance and are working to rule out every option.

A public appeal remains in place for anyone with information.

"If anything is any information comes that directs us to conduct further searches in specific areas, we will be doing that in the coming weeks," Williams said.

"As we've stated, we will never give up hope of finding Gus.

"There are further lines of inquiry being undertaken and the family have continued to cooperate fully with police and have consented to every request that we have made of them thus far."

An average of 30 SES volunteers have taken part in the search for Gus each day.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) also provided 50 personel for two days to assist police.

Before it was scaled back, the search for Gus spanned seven days and an area of almost 500 square kilometres, involving aircraft and teams on the ground.

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Deloitte will partially refund the federal government after admitting to using artificial intelligence in a $440,000 report that contained several errors.

The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) commissioned Deloitte to review its targeted compliance framework and IT system in December 2024, but the report came back littered with mistakes in the references and footnotes.

The report has since been corrected with deleted references and footnotes, corrections to errors and a new reference list.

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A DEWR spokesperson confirmed that the firm will repay the final instalment under its contract over the issue, which will be made public after the transaction is finalised.

University of Sydney welfare academic Chris Rudge was the first to notice more than a dozen mistakes when the report was handed down and published on the department's website in July. 

The report, which is across his area of expertise, contained made-up references that were attributed to his colleagues.

"I was in no doubt, when I read the names of the works, that they were fake because I work in the area and I know my colleagues' work," he said.

"Once I discovered one, I just discovered more and more."

One of the incorrectly referenced works was titled "The Rule of Law and Administrative Justice in the Australian Social Security System".

The original work is called "The Rule of Law and the Australian Constitution".

Rudge said the mistakes contained "all the hallmarks" of AI.

"I cannot understand how a human could create titles of works that don't exist, that don't appear on Google. How would they do that?" he said.

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"I think it's good if it's AI, because to think of a person doing that is almost worse.

"It's very disrespectful to those who have done the research to just not get it right." 

The report was corrected in September, after the mistakes were first reported by the Australian Financial Review in August.

An updated report was reuploaded to the website on Friday, noting a "small number of corrections to references and footnotes" that it said "in no way impact or affect the substantive content, findings and recommendations in the report".

In it, Deloitte also acknowledged that it had used "a generative artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (Azure OpenAI GPT-4o) based tool chain licensed by DEWR and hosted on DEWR's Azure tenancy" in its methodology.

But the firm, which runs its own AI Institute to advise clients and the industry on AI adoption and fluency, declined to confirm whether AI had caused the mistakes.

Instead, a Deloitte spokesperson simply said: "The matter has been resolved directly with the client."

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‘Some of the calls, even now with the passage of time… are distressing to hear.’

Eatery part-owned by Israel Adesanya had claimed Mexican chef stole their taco branding.

Western Australia has experienced record-breaking rain after a downpour broke a record first set in 1939.

A north-west cloudband extending at least 8000km has brought rain to the state as well as parts of South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.

About 60mm was recorded in Kalgoorlie in WA's Goldfields region in the 24 hours to 9am yesterday, according to Weatherzone

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This made it the heaviest day of October rain since records were first kept in 1939.

The previous record was 45.6mm.

This week's record was almost four times the October monthly average of 15.5mm in a single day.

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According to Weatherzone, October is Kalgoorlie's second-driest month of the year.

Rain started to ease in the area as the cloudband moved eastwards across the country.

The weather system is expected to bring light rain to parts of inland South Australia and New South Wales later this afternoon.

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Family hopes Jayleb-Che Dean, 36, is just ‘off somewhere’ without his phone.