Latest and Most Recent News from Oceania

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They were seen by millions around the world, clinging to the roof of their family car as it was swept along by devastating flash floods that struck small towns along a river valley in Queensland.

Source: Revealed: the desperate attempts to save a family from the Queensland floods

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Australia Day celebrations in London have seen three men honoured for their efforts representing the land Down Under, with a British flavour.

Source: Australia Day salute for three in UK

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Sun and sand ... the Gold Coast is one of the many Queensland tourist destinations unaffected by the floods.

Source: How the floods coverage killed tourism

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LGBT New Zealanders can't marry or adopt as a couple, but they otherwise have achieved total equal rights.

Source: Arsonists Force New Zealand Lesbian Couple to Close Business

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BANKER and philanthropist Simon McKeon has been named 2011 Australian of the Year.

Source: Australian of the Year named

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Matthew Flinders, a British explorer and cartographer, drew the map in 1804 after becoming the first European to circumnavigate Australia.

Source: Australians call for return of nation's 'birth certificate' from Britain

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IN AN unprecedented show of strength and purpose, more than a dozen Australians of the Year dating back to the 1960s have declared their support for a new national flag.

Source: Call goes out for a new flag

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Accomplished schoolgirl sailor Jessica Watson on Tuesday was named 2011 Young Australian of the Year.

Source: Teenage sailor Jessica Watson named Young Australian of the Year

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Prime Minister Julia Gillard will appeal to Australians' sense of the rightness of giving mates a helping hand as she releases details of the government's flood rebuilding package.

Source: PM to outline flood recovery plan

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First major show in a decade of country's art will also see museum lawn transformed into an Australian landscape A detail from Sidney Nolan's Ram suspended in tree, 1954, which echoes images of the recent floods in Queensland.

Source: Australian season set to bloom at British Museum