The World Today

In northern New South Wales flood records have been broken at Murwillumbah, rescue crews are struggling to get to all the people who're trapped on their roof tops and the SES fears lives may have been lost. Further south, Lismore's levee has been topped for the first time since it was built 12 years ago. In Queensland thousands of people in Logan and the Gold Coast have been ordered to go to higher ground as the Logan and Albert Rivers rise rapidly.

In north Queensland the recovery efforts from Cyclone Debbie are going to take some time. The towns of Airlie Beach and Proserpine are still without water and power and fuel is at a premium. Despite the destruction, affected residents are resiliently surviving, with help from the Defence Force who are helping provide necessities like water.

Banks have been told to put new limits on interest only loans and lending to property investors by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. APRA is responding to the Reserve Bank's concerns about high-risk lending to property investors. These measures are designed to slow lending growth.

A rare Friday sitting of parliament's so far not delivered the Government the deal it's looking for to pass its company tax cuts through the Senate. In the meantime senators are debating in meticulous detail legislation to amend the Racial Discrimination Act, with the Opposition accusing the Government of filibustering while it negotiates on the company tax cuts.

Closely watching the corporate tax debate is Grant King, the president of the Business Council of Australia, which represents the nation's largest companies. He's making his first major public address in Sydney this lunchtime at an event hosted by the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce.

The closure of the Hazelwood Power Station in Victoria is set to hit homes and hip pockets, with about a thousand people out of work. The prospect of their customers losing a primary source of income has business owners in the Latrobe Valley worried. But it's not the first time they've faced tough operating conditions.

Since they began in 2013, there've been hearings into public and private schools, detention centres, out of home care, sporting clubs, dance and performing arts academies, the scouts and churches, including the Catholic, Anglican, Uniting, Jehovah's Witnesses and Salvation Army. Twelve-hundred witnesses have appeared. The Royal Commission's final report is due mid December.

Indigenous leaders from north-east Arnhem Land have devised a new plan to deal with family violence in their community. It calls for a new approach to community policing, with a local authority of clan groups the first point of contact. They say misunderstandings about traditional and western legal systems are part of the problem.

The American space company Space X has again entered the aerospace history books by successfully launching a recycled rocket and landing it again undamaged. It's a much needed win for the company which has had a number of failed landings and an explosion on the launch pad last year. The company's founder Elon Musk has been working for 15 years to drive down rocket launch costs.

Amongst the swathe of carnage wrought by Cyclone Debbie, farmers have been some of the worst affected. Queensland's sugar cane growers are estimating the damage to their businesses to be upwards of tens of millions of dollars.