Kerang - 3579

Some are cheering the extra income from a proposed renewable energy transmission line, while others are vowing to lock their gates against electricity provider Transgrid.

Kerang in Victoria is no stranger to floods, but at the start of this year a rain event in the town inundated the local cemetery and continues to put burials on hold.

Weeks of wild weather in Victoria is likely to mean less stone fruit on supermarket shelves, after hail and heavy rain smashed Australia's main production regions, costing growers millions of dollars in losses.

A large rain band is leading to rainfall across much of Victoria, with the Bureau of Meteorology warning there is more to come overnight into Monday.

Flooding is becoming an all-too-familiar sight in Kerang, and climate reports are forecasting an extreme risk to the northern Victorian town by 2050.

The hay fire at Kerang continues to burn into the morning.

Hay fire burns at Kerang.

Fire crews battling a massive haystack blaze in northern Victoria faced windy conditions and ember attack through the night, with a veteran fire captain saying it was the "worst fire I've ever witnessed".

Native southern purple-spotted gudgeon fish — thought to have been extinct for two decades — have been released into a Victorian wetland. 

Police believe the two vehicles collided just after 1pm on the Murray Valley Highway in north-west Victoria, while in a separate incident in Mildura, two officers suffered minor injuries after their van was hit by a car at a busy intersection.

Aspiring female politicians are worried about representation amid an overhaul of local government structures as stakeholders warn single-councillor wards tend to favour major political groupings.

Long queues, the sky covered in rocket fire, and loud explosions, this family experienced the horrors of war in Kyiv. Now they are hoping to rebuild a "perfect" life in Australia.

WorkSafe has fined a diving company that conducts water tank and irrigation inspections and repairs $730,000 for repeatedly putting workers in danger of drowning. 

A meeting of about 80 VFF members has passed a resolution to gather the signatures required under its constitution to hold an extraordinary general meeting with its sole intention to dissolve the board and spill all elected positions.

The arrow lodged in the wood duck's body, and while it could initially still walk and swim the bird later died by haemorrhaging.

The Victorian government signs off on a preferred development plan and accelerates work on the controversial Victoria to New South Wales Interconnector West project to the surprise of newly affected landowners. 

Claire Fry's property became an island in October last year and the flood wiped out half of her chicken flock. But now breeding programs have recommenced and her business is rebounding amid high demand.

Part of a levee to protect properties in Torrumbarry, Gunbower, Leitchville, and Cohuna from 2022's floods, built by over 100 members of the community, is being torn down by council with no new plan yet in place.

Energy experts call on state and federal governments and AEMO to scrap major projects planned for Victoria, warning they will lead to higher bills and greater blackout and bushfire risks. 

Authorities continue to clean up and dispose of rotting fish from Victoria's Kangaroo Lake, where thousands of carcasses were discovered in a mass death event similar to a recent kill in New South Wales.   

Farm groups and locals from St Arnaud say they are "appalled" by the lack of transparency over plans to build powerlines from the Northern Grampians, over broadacre cropping areas, to Echuca.

Authorities are blaming algae and last year's floods after thousands of fish — some up to a metre long — are discovered floating dead in the state's north-west.

Adrian James Basham, who staged his estranged wife's murder as a suicide in what a Victorian judge describes as "the ultimate act of family violence", is sentenced to life in prison.

Loneliness is on the rise in Australia and mental health advocates say the response needs to shift away from pity to understanding and action.

More than 25 years after they were thought to be extinct, the small southern purple spotted gudgeon has been released into local waterways following a successful captive breeding program.