Prime Minister Scott Morrison has denied his calls for the resignation of then-Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate were based on gender.

Answering questions at a press conference in Western Australia today, Mr Morrison said he regrets "any distress", but did not apologise.

"This was about taxpayer organisations handing out Cartier watches to well-paid executives. This has nothing to do with gender. This has to do with the performance of people who are responsible for running taxpayer organisations," Mr Morrison said.

READ MORE: Christine Holgate: Scott Morrison's bullying 'an utter disgrace'

"We all carry big responsibilities, and it can be a very robust environment and that robust environment should not take account of people's genders.

"It should treat everybody equally. That's what I do."

The PM reaffirmed he was concerned Australia Post executives were being given Cartier watches as performance bonuses.

"I regret any distress that that strong language may have caused to her and indeed did cause to her. That was not my intention," Mr Morrison said.

"But this issue is about ultimately – all of us who serve in senior positions, whether it's Prime Minister or minister or chief executive or manager of a company, we all have responsibilities.

"This issue was about the way taxpayer money-funded companies are run."

READ MORE: Australia Post names Woolworths executive Paul Graham as new CEO

Ms Holgate said the experience of being "hung in parliament" will never leave her.

Ms Holgate appeared on Today the day after a scorching testimony to a Senate hearing that detailed extensive claims of bullying and harassment in October last year.

She stood down from her role after an enormous political fall-out following the purchasing of four Cartier watches for Australia Post executive worth approximately $20,000.

"Everybody makes mistakes sometimes. And if (Scott Morrison) was to call me and apologise, I would welcome that apology," Ms Holgate told Today.

"That's all I want. It's all the people have wanted. We just want respect. We just want a stop to bullying and humiliation."

READ MORE: Australia Post chairman admits Christine Holgate treated 'abysmally' but won't apologise

Ms Holgate said the past five months almost "broke" her, but she is stronger today for it.

"It felt like David fighting Goliath because I hope that makes me a more compassionate and understanding leader going forward," Ms Holgate said.

"You can't get run over and say, 'I'm completely OK now'. You can't be.

"Not if you're a person with real compassion.

"You know, we've all got feelings, but an apology would help, Karl."

Ms Holgate said she is "undoubtedly" most disappointed with Australia Post chair Lucio Di Bartolomeo, who she contends briefed the PM and lied about her resignation.

She said Mr Di Bartolomeo then leaked her offer of resignation to the media without her consent.

"He was the person who briefed the minister. He is the person who spoke to the minister before this event. He's the person who is supposed to stand up for me. He unlawfully stood me down," Ms Holgate said.

"It's been the most disgraceful act of bullying.

"We have contracts, as all employees do.

"At no point have they ever respected that contract. It is a disgraceful act of humiliation, bullying, intimidation, call it what you like."

A century-old shipwreck has been exposed on a NSW North Coast beach after rough seas in recent days.

The 39-metre vessel, named Buster, is fully visible for the first time in years after wind and heavy seas washed away the sand on Woolgoolga Beach, north of Coffs Harbour.

The ship's well-preserved jumble of wooden limbs is now fully explorable after being buried beneath sand and water for more than 120 years.

READ MORE: Cold front to bring damaging winds to several states

The wreck has already become a popular tourist attraction for families enjoying school holidays in the area with warnings from the council not to take parts of the ship away.

Buster was driven ashore by a violent storm at the mouth of Woolgoolga Lake in 1893.

The 310-tonne vessel was originally built in Canada during the late 1800s and arrived in the area from Sydney in February 1893 to load timber bound for New Zealand.

When Tasmanian police were searching for an alleged murderer in bushland in the state's north, it was a drone that tracked the suspect down.

Before the man's arrest, Tasmania Police described him as a skilled bushman, adept in the wild, and possibly having camouflage paint on his face and armed with a knife.

Tasmania Police said "significant" resources were used in the January search, including specialist and uniform personnel, sniffer dogs, thermal imaging and a chopper.

READ MORE: US Air Force training drone washes ashore on Florida beach

But it was a handheld drone, operated remotely by a trained police pilot, that spotted the suspect and made the breakthrough, with digital eyes in the air directing officers on the ground to the alleged murderer's location.

Australian state and territory police forces are increasingly leaning on their drone units to carry out operations just like the manhunt in Tasmania.

NSW Police, with 100 drones and 90 pilots, has the biggest fleet in the country, according to information gathered by nine.com.au.

Police forces across Australia are using drones to track suspects, conduct search and rescue operations, map crime scenes, assist road safety enforcement and to surveil armed siege incidents and monitor natural disasters.

Drones are now "a vital tool" in the fight against crime, a Tasmania Police spokesperson said.

NSW Police said its 100-strong fleet of drones regularly "supports front line policing operations", and that high-tech in the air can reduce the risk to conventional police units and the community.

READ MORE: ADF drones could have been used to 'spy' on Victorians during COVID-19

"[Drones] provide aerial platforms for policing major events," the NSW Police spokesperson said, alluding to the impressive power of camera-enabled drones to observe mass public gatherings.

Of the other Australian police forces willing to divulge the number of drones in operation, Victoria Police confirmed they had 30 drones, and Tasmania 23 drones and 19 pilots.

The Australian Federal Police, Queensland, South Australia and Northern Territory did not want to discuss specifics, citing protection of methodologies.

Only Australian Capital Territory Police and Western Australia Police did not respond to comment.

In the past financial year, Tasmania Police pilots launched drones in 227 operations.

"These new drones are an exciting new tool to be used in a wide variety of areas of policing," a Tasmania Police spokesperson said, discussing the merits of the small, easily maneuverable devices.

"We have had a number of successes across the state where offenders in stolen and evading vehicles have been apprehended with drone support.

"We have also located a number of stolen vehicles in bushland by using drones and have deployed drones to assist in searches for missing Tasmanians."

READ MORE: 'Killer robots' threaten future of humanity, campaigners warn

Leading artificial intelligence (AI) expert Dr Toby Walsh, a UNSW professor, said police drones of the future will only become more powerful and capable, which has the potential to raise red flags over privacy issues.

"There are some good uses of the technology in terms of being about to surveil and track people and conduct search and rescue operations," Dr Walsh said.

"But there are also worrying sides too, like surveilling large crowds in a way that changes our notion of privacy.

"The concerns potentially arise as the drones and technology get more sophisticated and the drones become autonomous."

Autonomous drones do not require a human pilot, with the machines instead able to fly through AI and powerful computing systems.

General trends in drone and technology tend to emerge first in the military and then cross over into police, Dr Walsh said.

"US foot soldiers in Afghanistan and Syria used small drones strapped to their wrists that they could launch off their hand to fly into potentially dangerous compounds to see if there were any bad guys around the corner.

"Drones can be very useful in these high-risk situations, and that's an instance that could be extremely useful for police."

Once the size of a family car, some drones now are no bigger than a bird or even an insect, and capable of covert and complex flight patterns.

That kind of aerial capability, paired with AI and computer systems able to churn complex oceans of data, adds up to a formidable technology.

The Chinese government has deployed facial recognition software on its autonomous drones that can easily find a single person in a vast outdoor concert-sized crowd, Dr Walsh said.

"That takes us to a totally different place because humans simply can't do that."

Video edit and production: Tara Blancato

Contact me: ms******@******om.au

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A vigorous cold front is expected to generate severe weather conditions for Australia's south eastern states, with damaging winds set to blast New South Wales, Victoria and large parts of Tasmania today.

The Bureau of Meteorology has warned residents of these states to prepare for gale force winds throughout the morning and into the afternoon.

In NSW, damaging winds are forecast for the Alpine regions and Southern Tablelands, with Perisher already being whipped by gusts close to 80km per hour this morning.

LIVE UPDATES: Morrison's plan to save vaccine rollout

https://twitter.com/BOM_au/status/1382173465403351043

The warning area extends over parts of the South Coast, Southern Tablelands, South West Slopes, Snowy Mountains and ACT.

For areas elevated higher than 1900 metres, winds averaging 70-80 km/h with peak gusts of 125 km/h or more may are expected this morning.

Rolling over into Wednesday, areas elevated between 1200 and 1900 metres are warned to expect damaging Winds averaging 60-70 km/h with peak gusts of 90 km/h or more.

Locations which may be affected include Braidwood, Goulburn, Cooma, Bredbo, Adaminaby and Nimmitabel.

Severe weather is also forecast to impact parts of Victoria with peak wind gusts up to 110km per hour across terrain above 300m in the warning area this morning.

Locations which may be affected include the Yarra Ranges, Mt Baw Baw, Mt Buller, Mt Hotham and Falls Creek.

The strongest gusts recorded to 4:30am this morning include 106 km/h at Mt Hotham at and 98 km/h at Mt Buller.

In Tasmania, the cold front will impact large parts of the state, with blustery westerly airflow expected to persist into the evening.

Warnings for damaging winds are in place for Western, Upper Derwent Valley, South East, North East, East Coast, North West Coast, Central North, Central Plateau and Midlands.

Winds are expected to ease below the warning threshold Wednesday evening, although it will remain gusty about the far south and the far northeast, into Thursday.

Locations which may be affected include Scottsdale, St Helens, Swansea, Bicheno, Orford, Strahan, Queenstown, New Norfolk, Bothwell, Hobart, Geeveston and Dover.

In South Australia, showers and cool conditions are forecast for most of the state with a strong wind warning for the South Central Coast, Upper South East Coast and Lower South East Coast.

Meanwhile, Western Australia is set for mostly sunny, cool-to-mild conditions in southwest. Clearing showers in the south and a late shower in the northwest. Mostly sunny, very warm conditions are slated for the state's northeast.

Sunny and hot conditions are forecast for the Northern Territory. Isolated showers, mild-to-warm in Arnhem. Sunny, very warm over the interior. Mostly sunny, warm-to-very warm in the south.

New Zealand has announced it will form a corridor with Australia from April 18, allowing free travel between the two countries. While the rest of us may have to wait until 2022 to be allowed in, when the majority of the country…

Former police officer Derek Chauvin's defence has seized on a 2019 confrontation between police and George Floyd in which Mr Floyd suffered dangerously high blood pressure and confessed to heavy use of opioid painkillers.

Defence lawyer Eric Nelson had argued Mr Floyd died last May because of his illegal drug use and underlying health problems, not because Mr Chauvin pinned him to the pavement with his knee.

Moments after the prosecution rested its case on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) following 11 days of testimony and a mountain of video evidence, the defence put on its first witness, a retired Minneapolis police officer who testified about a May 6, 2019, incident in which Mr Floyd was arrested.

READ MORE: Minnesota police chief, cop quit after Black driver's death

Scott Creighton said he drew his gun when Mr Floyd, a passenger in a car, did not comply with orders to show his hands.

Mr Nelson played body-camera video showing Mr Creighton approaching on the passenger side, drawing his gun and pulling Mr Floyd out.

Mr Chauvin's lawyer twice asked questions aimed at getting the jury thinking about Mr Floyd swallowing drugs but Mr Creighton said he did not see the Black man take anything.

Another witness who responded to that call, now-retired paramedic Michelle Moseng, testified Mr Floyd told her he had been taking multiple opioids about every 20 minutes.

"I asked him why and he said it was because he was addicted," said Ms Moseng, who described Mr Floyd's behaviour as "elevated and agitated" before the judge struck that remark from the record.

Ms Moseng said she recommended taking Floyd to the hospital, based on his high blood pressure, which she measured at 216 over 160.

On cross-examination, prosecutor Erin Eldridge got Ms Moseng to testify that Floyd's respiratory output, pulse, heart rate, EKG and heart rhythms were normal.

Ms Eldridge said Mr Floyd was taken to the hospital and released two hours later.

Ms Eldridge also made a point of noting officers gave Mr Floyd contradictory commands, Mr Creighton telling him to put his hands on the dashboard and another officer telling him to put his hands on his head.

She noted another officer threatened to use a stun gun on him, while Mr Floyd asked not to be shot or beaten up.

Judge Peter Cahill cautioned jurors the evidence from the earlier stop was only for the limited purpose of showing the effects opioids might have had on Mr Floyd and that they were not to use it to judge his character.

Medical experts for the prosecution testified previously that Mr Floyd died of lack of oxygen because his breathing was constricted as police held him down on his stomach, his hands cuffed behind his back, with Mr Chauvin's knee on or close to his neck for as much as 9 1/2 minutes.

The prosecution experts rejected the notion his drug use, high blood pressure or heart disease caused his death.

In fact, on Monday (Tuesday AEST), Dr Jonathan Rich, a cardiology expert from Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, testified: "Every indicator is that Mr Floyd had actually an exceptionally strong heart."

Mr Chauvin's lawyer introduced the 2019 arrest to show what he portrayed as a pattern of behaviour on Mr Floyd's part.

Body-camera footage from the day he died shows two officers approaching a panicked Mr Floyd, who says, "I'm not a bad guy!" and struggles, begging not to be put in a squad car.

Drugs were later found in his SUV and in the squad car, and fentanyl and methamphetamine were discovered in his system.

In court papers, Mr Nelson wrote that during the 2019 arrest, Mr Floyd wouldn't listen to officers' commands, put something in his mouth, had to be removed from a vehicle, then began to cry.

In that case, several opioid pills were found along with cocaine, he and another officer's attorney wrote.

A third defence witness on Tuesday, Shawanda Hill, who was in the SUV with Mr Floyd before his ill-fated encounter with Mr Chauvin, said Mr Floyd fell asleep at some point and seemed startled when he realised police were there.

When he saw an officer at the window with a gun, Mr Floyd "instantly grabbed the wheel and he was like, 'Please, please, don't kill me. Please, please, don't shoot me. Don't shoot me. What did I do? Just tell me what I did. Please, don't kill. Please, don't shoot me,'" Ms Hill testified.

Mr Nelson also sought to bolster previous suggestions the officers' actions were influenced by what they perceived as a hostile crowd of bystanders shouting at Mr Chauvin to get off Mr Floyd's neck.

Minneapolis Park police officer Peter Chang, who helped out at the scene that day, testified he saw a "crowd" growing across the street that "was becoming more loud and aggressive, a lot of yelling across the street."

"Did that cause you any concern?" asked Mr Nelson, who played footage from the officer's body camera, on which bystanders can be heard yelling and becoming increasingly frantic.

"Concern for the officers' safety, yes," Mr Chang replied.

During the prosecution side of the case, the wrenching video of Mr Floyd gasping for air was played for the jury along with other bystander footage and police body-camera video of the 46-year-old Black man's slow-motion death after his arrest on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 at a neighbourhood market.

Law enforcement experts and veteran Minneapolis police officials, including the police chief himself, testified Mr Chauvin's knee on Mr Floyd's neck was excessive and contrary to his training and departmental policy.

Mr Nelson hasn't said whether Mr Chauvin will take the stand.

Testifying could open him up to devastating cross-examination but could also give the jury the opportunity to see any remorse or sympathy on the officer's part.

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A white Minnesota police officer who fatally shot a Black man during a traffic stop in a Minneapolis suburb and the city's chief of police have resigned.

Officer Kim Potter and Police Chief Tim Gannon both resigned on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST), two days after the death of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center.

Ms Potter, a 26-year veteran, had been on administrative leave following Sunday's shooting.

READ MORE: Second night of unrest after Minnesota police fatally shoot Black man

Mr Gannon had said he believed the officer mistakenly grabbed her gun when she was going for her Taser.

She can be heard on her body camera video shouting "Taser! Taser!"

"Whenever, through the line of duty, someone kills another human being, there must be accountability," Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott told the "Today" show earlier Tuesday.

Activists and some residents said Wright was racially profiled, and his death has sparked two days of clashes between police and protesters.

The shooting happened as the Minneapolis area was already on edge over the trial of the first of four police officers in George Floyd's death.

Wright was shot as police were trying to arrest him on an outstanding warrant.

"I'll Tase you! I'll Tase you! Taser! Taser! Taser!" the officer is heard shouting on her body cam footage released on Monday.

She draws her weapon after the man breaks free from police outside his car and gets back behind the wheel.

After firing a single shot from her handgun, the car speeds away, and the officer is heard saying, "Holy s—! I shot him."

Mr Wright's father, Aubrey Wright, told ABC's Good Morning America on Tuesday that he rejected that explanation.

"I lost my son. He's never coming back. I can't accept that," he said.

"A mistake? That doesn't even sound right. This officer has been on the force for 26 years. I can't accept that," he said.

Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott earlier called the shooting in his city "deeply tragic" and said the officer should be fired.

Cr Elliott, the city's first Black mayor, said on Monday night (Tuesday AEST) that the city council had fired the city manager and voted to give the mayor's office "command authority" over the police force.

"We're going to do everything we can to ensure that justice is done and our communities are made whole," Elliott said.

The Wright family planned to speak again on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) alongside the family of George Floyd at the courthouse where the trial is being held for a former Minneapolis police officer charged in his death.

Protests erupted for a second night following Sunday's shooting, heightening anxiety in an area already on edge as the Derek Chauvin trial progresses.

Mr Floyd, a Black man, died on May 25 after Mr Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against his neck.

Police say one of the world's biggest bunnies has been stolen from its home in central England.

Darius, a Continental Giant rabbit, disappeared from his enclosure in a backyard in the village of Stoulton over the weekend, the West Mercia Police force said.

They did not elaborate on why they thought it was a theft instead of an escape.

READ MORE: Hotel robber exposes backside to camera in stumbling getaway

The force appealed for any information about or sightings of Darius, who is grey-brown and 129cm long at full stretch.

He holds the Guinness World Records citation for the world's longest rabbit. Rabbits of his type are known to weigh about 7 to 9kg.

Owner Annette Edwards, a large-rabbit breeder and model, urged the culprit or culprits to return Darius to his home 160km northwest of London, saying it was a "very sad day".

She initially offered a £1000 ($1799) reward, but tweeted Tuesday: "Please Please I am so upset Can you bring my Darius back I am putting the reward up to £2000 ($3598)."

READ MORE: Pet Pomeranian allegedly killed during robbery in Sydney's west

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