Received

Presumed human remains and debris from the tourist submersible destroyed in an implosion that killed five people have been recovered from the ocean floor and brought ashore in Canada for examination.

The possible remains and shattered remnants of the Titan, destroyed while diving to the wreck of the Titanic, and what were believed to be human remains were carried to port in St John's in Newfoundland, Canada, by the Canadian-flagged vessel Horizon Arctic.

The port is about 650 kilometres north of the site of last week's accident.

The evidence will be transported to a US port for analysis and testing by a marine board of investigation convened this week to conduct a formal inquiry into the loss of the Titan, the US coast guard said on Wednesday.

"There is still a substantial amount of work to be done to understand the factors that led to the catastrophic loss of the Titan and help ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again," Coast Guard Chief Captain Jason Neubauer said in a statement released late Wednesday afternoon.

US medical professionals also "will conduct a formal analysis of presumed human remains that have been carefully recovered within the wreckage at the site of the incident", Capt Neubauer added.

The marine board will share the evidence at a future public hearing whose date has not been determined.

Video from the Canadian Broadcast Corp showed what appeared to be the nose of the submersible and other shattered fragments wrapped in white tarp pulled up by a crane from the deck of the Horizon Arctic on Wednesday morning.

Footage also showed a shattered piece of the Titan's hull and machinery with dangling wires being taken off the ship at St John's, where the expedition to the Titanic had begun.

Examination of the debris is expected to shed more light on the cause of the catastrophic implosion that shattered the Titan on June 18 as the 6.7-metre vessel carried five people on a voyage to the century-old shipwreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic.

Canada's Transportation Safety Board, conducting its own inquiry, said its investigators had completed preliminary interviews with the crew of Titan's Canadian-flagged surface support vessel, Polar Prince, and seized that ship's voyage data recorder.

The board also said it had "inspected, documented and catalogued" all the materials recovered from the accident site before they were turned over to US authorities.

Fragments of the submersible, which had lost contact with its support surface ship about one hour and 45 minutes into a two-hour dive, were found littering the seabed about 490m from the bow of the Titanic wreck four days later.

The discovery by a robotic deep-sea diving vehicle scrounging the ocean floor more than 3km down ended a multinational search that captured worldwide media attention and sealed the fate of the five people aboard.

Among the dead was Stockton Rush, the submersible pilot and chief executive of US-based OceanGate Expeditions, which owned and operated the Titan.

Also killed were the British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58; Pakistani-born businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son, Suleman; and 77-year-old French oceanographer Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

The accident has raised questions about the unregulated nature of such expeditions and the decision by OceanGate to forego third-party industry review and certification of Titan's novel design.

"Our team has successfully completed off-shore operations, but is still on mission and will be in the process of demobilization from the Horizon Arctic this morning," Pelagic Research, which operates a robotic vehicle used in recovering the debris, said in a statement.

With AP

© AP 2023

Ex-NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian acted corruptly while in a five-year relationship with a Liberal MP trying to advance his financial interests, but will not face criminal charges.

That's the key finding of the NSW corruption watchdog, which investigated whether Ms Berejiklian breached the public trust by failing to disclose her personal relationship with Daryl Maguire when she was treasurer and later premier.

At issue was whether she had exercised her public functions when there was a perceived conflict of interest in her private life, and whether she turned a blind eye to allegedly corrupt conduct by the former MP for Wagga Wagga.

Operation Keppel began as a probe into Maguire but was expanded to the coalition premier after she was compelled to reveal the relationship in public hearings in 2020.

She had denied any wrongdoing, telling the Independent Commission Against Corruption that the romance, which began in 2015, had ended.

She resigned as premier in October 2021 when she officially became part of the investigation.

ICAC found both Ms Berejiklian and Maguire had engaged in serious corrupt conduct.

Ms Berejiklian breached the public trust in 2016 and 2017 in relation to funding promised to the Wagga Wagga-based Australian Clay Target Association.

"(She did so) without disclosing her close personal relationship with Mr Maguire, when she was in a position of a conflict of interest between her public duty and her private interest, which could objectively have the potential to influence the performance of her public duty," ICAC found.

Ms Berejiklian, 52, again engaged in serious corrupt conduct in relation to the Riverina Conservatorium of Music, another project advanced by Maguire, ICAC said.

She had taken part in a 2018 cabinet committee about the conservatorium and later determined to make a funding reservation of $20 million, without disclosing her "close personal relationship" with Maguire.

But ICAC will not refer her to the Director of Public Prosecutions for possible criminal charges, saying her conduct was not so serious as to merit criminal punishment.

Ex-Liberal treasurer Matt Kean slammed ICAC for making a finding of corrupt conduct and then effectively admitting it had no evidence for charges to be laid.

"So it has taken ICAC two years to tell us that Gladys Berejiklian has not broken the law," he posted on social media after the report was published.

Labor Premier Chris Minns said the finding did not take away from Ms Berejiklian's handling of the coronavirus pandemic in NSW from 2020, which was "excellent".

"It is important, however, for all politicians in New South Wales and anyone in public life or positions of leadership to understand we must manage conflicts of interest and declare them," he said.

The report made 18 recommendations including amending the code of conduct for MPs on the limited circumstances in which it is acceptable to intermingle parliamentary duties with personal or private activities.

After quitting office, Ms Berejiklian turned down an opportunity to run for federal parliament before moving into the private sector as an Optus executive.

ICAC did refer Maguire for possible misconduct in public office charges, after numerous findings that he also engaged in serious misconduct between 2012 and 2018 and improperly used his office as an MP.

Maguire, 64, is already facing criminal charges stemming from conduct exposed at an earlier ICAC inquiry, including for giving false and misleading evidence to that inquiry.

© AAP 2023

There are calls for more diabetes testing over fears the number of patients with related kidney disease admitted to hospital will soar.

Currently one in 20 hospitalisations in Australia is a patient with diabetes who is also having dialysis, costing about $2.68 billion a year.

That figure is tipped to jump 45 per cent by 2040 unless early screening is rolled out, according to a report by Diabetes Australia.

It showed better early detection could save about $500 million a year and implementing that would be cost-effective, lead author Professor Elif Ekinci said.

"It doesn't require new clinics, new operating theatres or new hospital beds," Prof Ekinci said.

"It involves taking our existing health infrastructure, including existing databases and services, and optimising them to increase rates of rates of screening."

Diabetes Australia is pushing for a database that could be used to keep track of alerts reminding patients to get medical checks.

An estimated one in four people with diabetes also has kidney disease, and about 10,000 are undergoing dialysis.

About 2000 die from kidney disease each year, but the condition can be prevented with early intervention.

Co-author Professor Richard MacIsaac said it was crucial to keep as many people off dialysis as possible because it was both a massive burden on the health system and tough on patients.

"A person receiving dialysis is visiting hospital more than 150 times a year to receive around 780 hours of care," Dr MacIsaac said.

"But if we can detect people early, existing medicines are excellent at stopping or slowing the progression of kidney disease."

The report showed every dollar spent on the detection and prevention of chronic kidney disease returned about $45.

"If we get this right we save lives and can reduce the impact of diabetes complications on our health system," Prof Ekinci said.

© AAP 2023