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Tasmania's Environmental Protection Authority has acknowledged that the salmon industry is having a visible environmental impact on Macquarie Harbour. Fears about the harbour arose when the ABC's Four Corners program put a spotlight on the environmental damage being done by the industry's practices. The EPA's director has called on industry bodies to provide management plans for replenishing areas of their lease that are under stress.

A liquidator is trying to offload responsibility for cleaning up a failed underground coal gasification operation that allegedly contaminated prime farmland in Queensland. Linc Energy ran the Darling Downs plant between 2007 and 2013, and five executives have been charged with environmental offences. Now the liquidator, PPB Advisory, has launched a legal challenge against the Queensland Government, claiming Linc Energy is insolvent and can't afford the environmental protection order.

ABC TV's Catalyst program, which has been on air for 16 years, will broadcast its final episode tonight. The national broadcaster axed the science program almost two weeks ago, making all the staff involved with the program redundant. The program has been the source of some controversy over the years, with one of its reporters suspended earlier this year when the ABC's Audience and Consumer Affairs Unit found that an episode breached editorial standards. The plan to replace the weekly half-hour science magazine with 17 one-hour documentaries a year has generated anger in the science community, who say the Australian media need more science journalism, not less.

A new report has found that Australia's screen industry contributed $3 billion to GDP in 2014-15, but its associated cultural value to Australian viewers amounted to more like $17 billion for the same period. Screen Australia commissioned the report, which is the first of its kind to try to place a value on the economic, cultural and social worth of Australian film, television, video games and online content.

It seems a new term has been coined for the Federal Government's operation to stop asylum seeker boats from their human cargo to Australia shores. A so-called "ring of steel" will now repel people smuggling operations in what Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called the biggest ever peacetime maritime operation in Australia's northern waters. The ramp-up of border operations is part of an effort to curb any potential restart of the trade in asylum seekers that may occur in the wake of the Government's blockbuster refugee deal with America.

Since Operation Sovereign Borders began in late 2013, Australia has turned back 29 asylum seeker boats to the countries they came from. At least three of those boats were from Vietnam. One boat featuring in this year's federal election campaign, when the Government trumpeted the return of 21 Vietnamese asylum seekers. According to Trung Doan from Australian-Vietnamese NGO Voice Australia, some who were on that boat now face years in jail.

The Australian Government is proudly promoting its policy to resettle some of the refugees on Manus Island and Nauru in the United States. However, whether Donald Trump will keep the deal once he becomes President in January is another question. Mark Krikorian is the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think-tank that supports tighter controls on immigration in the United States. He says the policy is contrary to Mr Trump's immigration policy and he doesn't see any reason why the new administration will support it.

A prosecution launched against former Queensland mining company executives has been described as rare in both its scale and complexity. The State Government has charged five former executives of Linc Energy with environmental offences which could attract large fines or jail terms. Linc Energy ran an experimental underground coal gasification plant that allegedly polluted a widespread area on the Darling Downs. The Government pursued the individuals after the company went into liquidation.

Voters in the New South Wales seat of Orange have ended decades of loyalty to the National Party, putting a broom through the party's leadership. The Nationals' state leader and deputy are resigning after the party suffered an unprecedented swing against it at a weekend by-election. The seat has been in Nationals' hands since the late 1940s, but now is expected to be won by minor party the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party.

IVF clinics across Australia have been put on notice over misleading conduct, after an investigation by the consumer watchdog found some clinics had made false claims about pregnancy success rates on their websites. The ACCC has found evidence that some fertility clinics have been misleading consumers by citing statistics on successful pregnancy without reference to accurate data on successful live births. The peak industry body, the Fertility Society of Australia, says it's drafting a set of advertising guidelines for fertility clinics to follow.