Former NSW transport official Ibrahim Helmy tells the corruption watchdog he artificially inflated invoices for work provided to the government before splitting the profits with contractors.

The federal opposition has accused Communications Minister Anika Wells of misleading parliament over when her office was notified of the Optus Triple-Zero outage that has been linked to four deaths. It comes as emails that Optus sent to notify the government and the regulator of the outages, which ultimately affected more than 600 people last month, are scrutinised in Senate estimates. Meanwhile, legislation creating a triple-zero custodian has passed the lower house.

Alt: a woman says i 've had it officially while wearing a black dress

Valerie's disappearance on South Australia's Kangaroo Island unleashed a 529-day hunt. She dodged rescue attempts and traps and had some wondering whether the sausage dog was mocking them and having the time of her life.

Liberal MP Andrew Hastie insists his decision to quit the frontbench is not part of an attempt to replace Sussan Ley as the federal opposition leader.