An icy polar blast is set to sweep much of Australia just in time for the start of winter.

The strong cold front will surge through South Australia into Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland from today, bringing a wave of below average temperatures.

A severe weather warning for gale force winds has been issued for most of NSW, with conditions set to worsen into this evening.

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The wind chill is set to see Central West towns such as Bathurst and Orange record temperatures as low as 2C in coming days.

People are warned to expect winds in excess of 90km/h, while thunderstorms are forecast for Sydney today.

Melbourne is also potentially facing its coldest day so far this year, with a forecast top of 12C.

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Brisbane will see the colder weather later in the week, with Thursday expected to be the weather system's peak.

On the other side of the country, the north of Western Australia has been battered by rain as another cold front puts a chill through the state's south.

The unseasonal rain brought flash flooding to parts of the Pilbara coast, with cars trapped by floodwaters outside Whim Creek.

The heavy rain will move east over the coming days, with flood warnings in place across the Pilbara.

Shoppers have returned to the malls of Beijing as the Chinese capital relaxes pandemic restrictions after declaring a small but persistent COVID-19 outbreak effectively under control.

A partial reopening of stores and offices in Beijing on Sunday was welcomed by a weary populace and struggling shopkeepers eager for life to return to normal.

Coupled with a gradual easing of restrictions in Shanghai, it signalled the worst was over in the twin outbreaks in China's most prominent cities.

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The lockdowns and other restrictions under China's "zero-COVID" strategy have increasingly frustrated residents as they see other countries ease up and re-open their borders.

Some have resisted and staged protests at apartment complexes and university dormitories, in an authoritarian country where people think twice about speaking out publicly because of possible repercussions.

Restaurants remain closed in Beijing, except for takeout and delivery, and many people in Shanghai still can only go out with special passes and for a limited time period, even as the number of new cases has plummeted.

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Officials tend to err on the side of caution under a system that readily punishes them for lax enforcement if outbreaks flare up or come back.

China recorded 293 new cases on Saturday, of which 78 were among people who had arrived from overseas.

Shanghai had the most non-imported cases, with 122, and Beijing had 21. That's in a population of more than 20 million people in both cities.

Beijing allowed public parks, gyms and cinemas to reopen on Sunday, all at 50 per cent of their capacity.

A portion of the Great Wall in a rural part of Beijing, about 60 kilometres from downtown, reopens to visitors on Monday.

Xu Hejian, a city spokesperson, said Saturday that sporadic cases were still being found in some districts, but they were within a controllable range.

"This round of outbreak has been put under effective control," he said.

Two teenagers are fighting for life after being stabbed outside an inner-city Sydney hotel where they had been celebrating a birthday.

Police are investigating the incident, which occurred on Cleveland Street, Redfern, about 4am on Sunday and left three young men injured.

The three men, all from Western Sydney, had been at a 22nd birthday party at the venue, a booking of up to 300 people.

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Once it finished, police were called to move on the group, which spilled onto nearby streets about 3am.

Officers said they then found an 18-year-old unconscious and bleeding heavily after being stabbed in the stomach, a 19-year-old also critical with a stab wound to the chest and a 20-year-old with a wound to his arm.

Inspector Dominic Wong from NSW Ambulance said paramedics arriving at the scene had "great concern for all three patients, particularly the teenager who was unconscious and bleeding heavily from his abdomen."

Wong said all three men "injured were known to each other".

"It is concerning that people would attend a party armed with a knife," he said.

"We don't know where the knife has come from, we haven't established who is an offender."

Investigations are ongoing.

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An Australian father who died in Ukraine while providing humanitarian aid had a "heart of gold", according to family members.

Michael O'Neill, a Tasmanian man working as a truck driver helping injured Ukrainians on the front line, died on Wednesday.

His mother, Elizabeth Rickards said she her son was "fearless".

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"Ever since he went over, we knew something bad was going to happen but off he went," she said.

"He was doing whatever he could, it's extraordinary, he ended going up to the front line and bringing people back."

In an earlier Facebook post, his mother said he trained to be a soldier and "ended up in the war zone when the Ukraine army came under very heavy fire".

She said it was there her son's "luck ran out".

"As you can imagine our family is grieving and he has left a huge hole in our lives. He left two daughters and a son so part of him is still with us," she wrote earlier.

During his time over there he was awarded a commendation for bravery from the Commander of the Ukraine Army, she said.

O'Neill leaves behind two daughters and a son, as well as his mother and five brothers and sisters.

"We are very, very sad, he was the youngest, our baby," Rickards said.

"We have a little bit of him left with us."

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Both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) confirmed they are providing consular assistance to O'Neill's family.

"We send our deepest condolences to the family," a DFAT spokesperson said.

The department's travel advice for Ukraine remains at "do not travel",amid the Russian invasion, which began in February.

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A fisherman has narrowly escaped drowning after being washed off the rocks at Fingal Head near the Gold Coast earlier today.

Witnesses heard the man screaming for help and called triple zero.

Mary* said she was walking her dogs on the headland at around 8.45am when she saw people waving their arms.

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"There was a guy just down below the cliff in the water being swept near the rocks," she said.

"There were about eight of us who kept yelling out for him to 'hold on, keep your head up, keep floating, helps coming', clapping, whistling."

They watched on helplessly as he hung onto his rod and tried to remain afloat on his back whilst being hammered by huge waves.

"He looked exhausted and disappeared a few times," Mary said.

The man was being washed around for about 30 minutes before police arrived.

Life savers on jet-skis came to his rescue but were unable to get close enough to pull him from the water at first.

They then threw him a rescue buoy and eventually he was able to grab hold of the floating device and be pulled to safety.

He was taken to Tweed Hospital in a serious but stable condition.

*Mary asked to use only her first name for privacy reasons.

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