A rural Australian town was in shock Wednesday after a mother and her three children were found shot dead at a farmhouse in a "horrific scene", as police searched a nearby dam for the father.

Australia Tuesday rejected United Nations criticism that its treatment of asylum-seekers was "leading to a chain of human rights violations" with Canberra saying abuses in Syria and Iraq were worse.

Opposition politicians and industry groups in Australia demanded clarity from the government Tuesday over reports that it could buy a new submarine fleet from Japan rather than build them at home.

An intensified underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 will start in about two weeks' time, Australian premier Tony Abbott said Saturday as he visited Malaysia to discuss the issue.

Abbott said the hunt for the jet, which inexplicably veered off its Kuala Lumpur-Beijing route on March 8 with 239 people aboard, would continue for as long as necessary.

The Australian authority leading the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 said Friday that "hard spots" had been found on the Indian Ocean seabed, but that most would likely be geological features.

Experts are conducting a sonar survey of a remote patch of the southern Indian Ocean, an area never previously explored in such detail, in preparation for an underwater search for the plane which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people onboard.

Australia said Friday it has ordered a review into the medical care of an asylum-seeker who is reportedly on life support after cutting his foot at an offshore camp, as activists said he was the victim of neglect.

Australia's economy lost pace in the second quarter of 2014 after a sharp fall in exports saw growth expand by just 0.5 percent following a strong start to the year, data showed Wednesday.

Annual growth was 3.1 percent, figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics said, compared with a year-on-year expansion of 3.5 percent in the first-quarter. Growth came in at to 1.1 percent in the three months to March.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Tuesday said "extreme force" was justified in battling Islamic State militants as he played down reports that an Australian plane delivering humanitarian aid in Iraq came under fire.

Australia will "in coming days" join ally the United States in an international effort to transport weapons to Kurdish forces fighting IS extremists in northern Iraq.

Australia will toughen its sanctions against Russia over the crisis in Ukraine so they match those of the European Union, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Monday.

Australia already has some sanctions against Russia, but Abbott said these would be tightened as a result of Moscow's persistent and deliberate violation of its neighbor's sovereignty.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Monday defended Australia's military involvement in battling Islamic State militants, calling the jihadist group a "death cult" involved in ethnic cleansing.

Australia on Sunday agreed to help the United States in an international effort to transport weapons to Kurdish forces fighting the IS in northern Iraq, as well as humanitarian air drops to the besieged town of Amerli.