Received

The Liberals say they expect to see a "dirty campaign" from Labor as the major parties battle in a by-election for the federal seat of Fadden.

The Australian Electoral Commission on Friday conducted the ballot draw for the July 15 by-election, triggered by the resignation of controversial former minister Stuart Robert.

The ballot paper includes 13 candidates with Labor's Letitia Del Fabbro drawing top spot.

Visiting the Gold Coast seat on Friday, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton told reporters the rising cost of living would be a key issue in the by-election.

But Mr Dutton expected a tough fight, despite the seat being held by the LNP with a margin of 10.6 per cent.

"There's a big fight on and Labor will run a dirty campaign," Mr Dutton said.

"But this by-election is about electing a champion for your local community, somebody who can work hard.

"And it's also about making sure that you deliver a message to the Labor government that they're not doing well enough on cost-of-living issues, on crime, on congestion."

The LNP is running Gold Coast councillor Cameron Caldwell, who drew second-last place on the ballot paper.

The by-election comes as independent federal MPs call for ministers to be forced by law to publish the meetings they have with lobbyists, politicians and interest groups.

Kooyong MP Monique Ryan and Curtin MP Kate Chaney said media reports Mr Robert met with consulting firm Accenture to discuss an $111 million federal project when he was a cabinet minister showed the need for ministerial diaries to be published.

"The public should know who ministers are meeting and why, and they should know this as soon as is practicable," they said.

"We should have known about this important meeting between former minister Robert and Accenture in 2021, not after the minister had left office and resigned."

Labor in opposition argued for the publishing of ministerial diaries.

The government also raised questions in parliament on Thursday about whether Mr Robert was a "shadow director" of lobbying firm Synergy 360, which cabinet minister Bill Shorten said "sign(ed) up corporate clients with the promise of helping them navigate parliament and the bureaucracy and meet key decision-makers, including senior coalition ministers".

Mr Robert has denied helping Synergy 360 assist its clients to secure government contracts.

© AAP 2023

The five people aboard a missing submersible died in what appears to have been a "catastrophic implosion," a US coast guard official says, bringing a grim end to the massive international search for the vessel that was lost during a voyage to the Titanic.

A robotic diving vehicle deployed from a Canadian ship discovered a debris field from the submersible Titan on Thursday morning on the seabed some 488 metres from the bow of the Titanic, more than four kilometres beneath the surface, in a remote corner of the North Atlantic, US coast guard Rear Admiral John Mauger told reporters.

The Titan, operated by the US-based company OceanGate Expeditions, had been missing since it lost contact with its surface support ship on Sunday morning about an hour and 45 minutes into what should have been a two-hour dive to the world's most famous shipwreck.

Five major fragments of the 6.7m Titan were located in the debris field left from its disintegration, including the vessel's tail cone and two sections of the pressure hull, coast guard officials said.

No mention was made of whether human remains were sighted.

"The debris field here is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vehicle," Mauger said.

The five people aboard included British billionaire and explorer Hamish Harding, 58; Pakistani-born businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, both British citizens; French oceanographer and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77; and Stockton Rush, the US founder and chief executive of OceanGate, who was piloting the submersible.

"These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world's oceans," OceanGate said in a statement.

"Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time."

Rescue teams from several countries had spent days scanning thousands of square kilometres of open seas with planes and ships for any sign of the Titan.

Mauger said it was too early to tell when Titan met its fate but the debris field's position relatively close to the shipwreck and the time frame of the last communication with the Titan seemed to suggest the failure occurred near the end of its descent on Sunday.

The US navy acknowledged an analysis of its acoustic data had detected "an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion" near the submersible's location when its communications were lost.

"While not definitive, this information was immediately shared" with commanders of the search mission, a senior navy official said in a statement quoted by the Wall Street Journal.

Citing unnamed US defence officials, the Journal said the sound was picked up by a top-secret system designed to detect enemy submarines.

Filmmaker James Cameron, who directed the Oscar-winning movie Titanic and has ventured to the wreck in submersibles himself, told Reuters he learned of the acoustic findings within a day and knew what it meant.

"I sent emails to everybody I know and said 'we've lost some friends, the sub had imploded - it's on the bottom in pieces right now'," he said.

"I sent that out Monday morning."

Sonar buoys dropped by aircraft had picked up some sounds on Tuesday and Wednesday that temporarily offered hope the Titan was intact and its occupants were alive and trying to communicate by banging on the hull.

But officials said analysis of the sound was inconclusive and the noises probably emanated from something else.

Robotic craft on the ocean floor will continue to gather evidence, Mauger said, but it was not clear whether recovering the victims' remains will be possible given the nature of the accident and extreme conditions at those depths.

The expedition to the Titanic wreck, which OceanGate has been operating since 2021, cost $US250,000 ($A368,000) per person.

Questions about Titan's safety were raised in 2018 during a symposium of submersible industry experts and in a lawsuit by OceanGate's former head of marine operations, which was settled later that year.

© RAW 2023

Relatives and colleagues have mourned five people who died when their submersible imploded in the North Atlantic during a deep dive to the Titanic wreck, triggering questions from experts about safety rules for such adventures.

Debris from the Titan submersible, which had been missing since Sunday, was detected on Thursday by a robotic diving vehicle deployed from a Canadian ship as part of an international rescue effort.

Remains of the submersible, which lost contact with a surface ship about 1 hour and 45 minutes into a two-hour descent, were discovered on the seabed about 490 metres from the bow of Titanic wreck, about four kilometres below the surface, US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said on Thursday.

He told reporters the debris was consistent with "a catastrophic implosion of the vehicle".

The five who died included Stockton Rush, US founder and chief executive officer of OceanGate Expeditions, which operated the submersible and charged $US250,000 ($A370,000) per person to make the Titanic trip. He was piloting the craft.

The others were British billionaire and explorer Hamish Harding, 58; Pakistani-born businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, both British citizens; and French oceanographer and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77.

"These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world's oceans," OceanGate said.

A statement issued by the British Asian Trust on behalf of the Dawood family read: "With profound sorrow, we mourn the tragic loss of Shahzada and his beloved son, Suleman, who had embarked on a journey to visit the remnants of the legendary Titanic in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean."

Teams from the United States, Canada, France and Britain had spent days scanning a vast swathe of open sea for the Titan.

The US Navy said an analysis of acoustic data detected "an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion" near the submersible's location when communication with Titan was lost.

A senior Navy official said in a statement first quoted by the Wall Street Journal that its information "while not definitive" was shared with commanders of the search mission.

The Journal, citing unnamed US defence officials, said the sound was picked up by a system used to detect enemy submarines.

Moviemaker James Cameron, who directed the 1997 Oscar-winning film Titanic that did much to revive global interest in the British ocean liner that sank in 1912, said he learned of the acoustic findings within a day and knew what it meant.

"I sent emails to everybody I know and said we've lost some friends. The sub had imploded. It's on the bottom in pieces right now. I sent that out Monday morning," Cameron, who has ventured to the wreck in submersibles, told Reuters.

Questions about Titan's safety were raised in 2018 during a symposium of submersible industry experts and in a lawsuit by OceanGate's former head of marine operations, which was settled later that year.

"There may be calls for more regulation, better understanding of how these sorts of vehicles are designed, built and certified for use in these deep sea environments," said Stefan Williams, professor of marine robotics at the University of Sydney.

Scientist and journalist Michael Guillen, who survived an expedition in 2000 that became trapped in the wreck's propeller, said: "Whether we find the vessel and determine what went wrong with this vessel, we need to stop, pause and ask this question, why do you want to go to the Titanic and how do you get there safely?"

The Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg on its first voyage, killing more than 1500 people aboard. It lies about 1450km east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and 640km south of St. John's, Newfoundland.

© RAW 2023