The World Today

Malcolm Turnbull has ended the Commonwealth's 10 year ownership of a small regional hospital in North Western Tasmania. He is paying $730 million over 10 years to the State Government to take back ownership of the facility. It undoes former prime minister John Howard's unprecedented move to take control of the hospital a decade ago.

Tasmanian politicians in the states Upper House have been briefed by timber industry representatives and environmentalists and about the State Government's forest bill. The Government is looking to overturn a deal that was done under the previous Government to protect forest and instead allow the trees to be available to be logged.

The former head of the Business Council of Australia and one of Australia's top businesswomen is today switching her focus to the university sector. Catherine Livingstone will formally be made Chancellor of the University of Technology Sydney later today. But when she joined me in the World Today studio before the ceremony, she said she feels like she's continuing a career that has always been focused on driving innovation and technological change in Australia.

Anger is brewing in a small southern New South Wales community over resurrected plans for a $1.5 billion peaking power station. The energy company AGL is investigating whether to build the gas-fired plant, north of Canberra, after the project was suspended in 2012.

The linked issues of youth detention and the child protection in the Northern Territory are currently the subject of the royal commission. The CEO of Anglicare NT Dave Pugh says he would like that inquiry to look at the issue of homelessness specifically as a result of those systems. According to the service, over half of the young people who access their homelessness service are young people who have come either from state care or from youth justice.

The Federal Government has conceded Australia is the most lucrative market for drug trade in the western world. The Justice Minister Michael Keenan made the claim after a record 900-kilogram seizure of ice in Melbourne. But one lecturer in criminology has cast doubt on whether this latest drug bust will put a dent in trade and consumption across the country.

In the United States, a slew of sexual complaints against Fox News presenter Bill O'Reilly program has seen at least 18 companies pull their advertising from his program. It's been revealed several of the network's former employees and contributors have levelled accusations that the right-wing commentator sexually harassed them. Other staff are currently suing Fox News, claiming that they've been subjected to years of racist abuse at the network.

Some poorer flood victims are returning to live in damaged homes, despite contaminated waters washing sewerage and diesel through their caravans and cabins late last week. In the northern New South Wales town of Chinderah, more than 130 caravan park residents lost almost everything. Many living by the Tweed River don't have insurance and plan to start rebuilding themselves.

Australia's insurance industry says it wants to make sure there's no repeat of the public relations disaster that followed the 2011 floods in Queensland, when residents in Brisbane and Ipswich found they had no flood insurance, but already there are claims of prohibitive premiums in flood ravaged Lismore. The industry denies that it is at fault and has renewed its calls for the Federal Government to put aside $200 million in the upcoming budget for flood mitigation measures to protect communities.

Rising house prices and frustrated buyers are driving more calls for changes to negative gearing. The tax concessions for investors are widely blamed for first home buyers being unable to afford a house in some of the nation's biggest cities. The Institute of Company Directors says the tax break for housing investment needs to be reviewed because it is not productive.