Prime Minister Scott Morrison has pledged a price cut to all medicines listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme if he wins the election under the biggest change to the scheme in decades, however the Opposition has criticised the timing of the announcement.

While campaigning in Tasmania, Mr Morrison announced $10 price cut to the cost of all medicines listed on the PBS if he is re-elected by reducing the maximum PBS co-payment.

The price reduction would mean the maximum cost of any medication on the PBS would be $32.50, saving patients up to $120 a year.

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Currently, the maximum co-payment is $42.50.

Labor, however, has criticised Mr Morrison for the timing of the announcement, given a number of senior Liberal members revealed the policy around the Federal Budget before it was retracted soon after.

Opposition finance spokesperson Katy Gallagher said Labor would unveil its own policy on medicine prices soon – hinting that similar commitments to the government's would be forthcoming – without committing to Mr Morrison's announcement today.

"We will have more to say about this," Ms Gallagher said.

"I suspect it's the fact that we will have more to say about this that has focused Mr Morrison's mind on making the announcement he has today."

It comes as the cost of living has been in stark focus during the campaign after inflation rose to a 20-year high.

The government said the saving will benefit 19 million Australians and will cost the budget $150 million per year.

The change would come into effect from January 1 next year.

"In the Budget this year, we understood the need to take action to provide relief on cost-of-living pressures, and we know though pressures are real," Mr Morrison said.

"There are many things you can't control. You can't control the war in Europe, you can't control natural disasters. You can't control whether there is a pandemic or not.

"All of these things impacting on the prices Australians are paying every day.

"You can make the safety net more generous to help people who are on these medications, and you can reduce this non-concessional payment down by $10 on every single script."

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President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia Trent Twomey has welcomed the announcement after the organisation has rallied for adjustments to prescriptions prices for years.

"If we can't afford the treatment that is prescribed we're going to add to the pressures on the health system," Mr Twomey said.

"This is a first.

"The PBS has been around since WWII this is the only time medicines have gone in a different direction to up.

"This helps our patients paycheck to paycheck at the cash register."

It comes after the government announced in the Budget changes to the PBS Safety Net Threshold from July 1, where concessional patients will reach the threshold at 12 fewer scripts.

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COVID-19 cases have risen in Queensland while remaining relatively stable in New South Wales and Victoria but the three states have recorded a combined 44 virus fatalities.

NSW recorded 11,709 COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours.

This is a slight drop from yesterday's 11,903 cases.

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20 people died with the virus.

There are 1623 people in hospital with COVID-19 and 69 admitted to ICU.

Hospital admissions have decreased since yesterday, from 1645 hospitalisations, while ICU admissions are up by one.

Queensland

Queensland has recorded 5885 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, an increase from yesterday's 4477 infections.

Five people have died with the virus.

There are 468 people in hospital and nine people admitted to ICU, both of which have dropped since yesterday.

Victoria

Victoria recorded 9064 COVID-19 cases overnight, a drop from yesterday's 11,083 infections.

Nineteen people died with the virus.

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There are 448 people in hospital with the virus and 30 admitted to ICU.

Hospitalisations have risen from 428 yesterday, but ICU admissions have dropped from 35.

President Joe Biden and his advisers are still in conversations about how to approach November's Group of 20 summit, whose hosts received confirmation that Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to attend.

Mr Biden has said Russia should be ejected from the G20. Senior members of his administration have walked out of G20 events where Russian delegates are present. And there were discussions with Indonesia, which is hosting the summit, about stepping up its condemnation of Russia.

But no decision on boycotting the leaders' summit, still six months away, has been made. Officials said there wouldn't likely be a decision in the near term as they weigh the downsides of skipping the event and ceding the table to Russia and China.

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"The President has expressed publicly his opposition to President Putin attending the G20," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.

She said it was too early to say how the summit would look.

"It is six months away. So we don't know how to predict, we can't predict at this point, what that will look like," she said, adding: "We've conveyed our view that we don't think they should be a part of it publicly and privately as well."

The White House is realistic the G20 will not collectively remove Russia from its ranks, since the decision would likely require consensus and China has been clear it doesn't support such a move. That makes this a different scenario than when Russia was expelled from the G8 after its annexation of Crimea.

Ms Psaki said the White House's understanding was that Indonesia invited Mr Putin to attend prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Yet in a statement, the country's President stressed unity among the member countries.

"Indonesia wants to unite the G20. Don't let there be a split. Peace and stability are the keys to the recovery and development of the world economy," President Joko Widodo said in a statement from Indonesia's Cabinet on Friday, confirming Mr Putin had accepted his invitation to attend.

Mr Widodo also extended an invitation earlier this week to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who tweeted he was "grateful" for the invite, but did not specify whether he would attend the summit.

Mr Widodo spoke with Mr Putin and Mr Zelensky in separate phone calls this week, during which he conveyed to the Russian president the importance of ending the war in Ukraine "immediately" and Indonesia's desire to contribute to a peaceful resolution to the conflict, according to the statement.

Mr Widodo said he conveyed to Mr Zelensky Indonesia's readiness to provide humanitarian assistance to Ukraine but not military assistance, which he said is prohibited by Indonesia's constitution and its foreign policy principles.

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Confirmation of Mr Putin's attendance sets up a potentially complicated summit on the Indonesian island Bali, which is scheduled to begin in the beginning of November. White House officials have mulled a number of different scenarios, including potentially sending a lower-level delegation or participating remotely. But Mr Biden attending in person is still considered the likeliest outcome, even if Mr Putin is also there, according to officials.

Ms Psaki said there were no indications Russia was willing to engage in serious diplomacy.

"There's a lot that could happen between now and then, but we certainly haven't seen an indication to date of Russia's plan to participate in diplomatic talks constructively," she said.

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"Our hope certainly is that will change because obviously diplomatic talks and conversations is the way to bring an end to this conflict and President Putin could end this tomorrow, could end this right now."

Earlier this month, finance ministers from multiple nations, including US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, walked out of a closed-door G20 session in Washington when the Russian delegate began his prepared remarks, a show of protest against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

Ahead of the meeting, US officials had said Ms Yellen would not participate in certain sessions of the gathering that included Russia. And Mr Biden said during a snap NATO summit in March he would support Russia's ejection from the G20.

Short of that, Mr Biden said Ukraine should be invited to participate. He said he'd discussed the matter with other leaders during his meetings.

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An image has revealed why deliveries around the globe have been delayed as thousands of ships queue around the port in the Chinese city of Shanghai.

The graphic shows thousands of ships sitting idly around Shanghai due to China's zero-tolerance approach to COVID-19, meaning anything on the shipping containers is stuck in transit.

Ten per cent of the world's items currently being shipped are reportedly stuck in the country's ports.

READ MORE: PM pledges cheaper prescriptions by lowering PBS co-payment

Supply chain management lecturer at Australian National University David Leaney said the image is "as bad as it looks".

"To give you an idea of the scale, Shanghai's greater port area is about 60 kilometres wide so that's about 3600 square kilometres so it usually handles 2000 ships a month and 40 million shipping containers," Mr Leaney said.

"It is impacting a lot of different items, if you've ordered white goods, furniture, clothes you're in for major delays."

The backlog is causing delays to both imports and exports.

As inflation has reached a 20-year high in Australia, Mr Leaney warned these shipping delays are only going to add to the costs.

"Costs are going up which are adding to inflation pressures and that will, of course, add to pressures on interest rates," he said.

Mr Leaney warned the delays may last months.

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"Even if we were to fix the COVID-19 situation magically in China, it will still take months to clear the backlog," he said.

"It's like when you have a traffic accident and the accident is cleared but it still takes ages for the traffic to flow again after the cars have been towed away because of the congestion caused by it.

"I think we will see delays for the rest of 2022."

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A request by Ghislaine Maxwell's attorneys to have her sex trafficking convictions dropped has been denied.

"The testimony and other trial evidence established the Defendant's role in grooming and recruiting underage girls and using the cover of massage to perpetrate sexual abuse," US District Judge Alison Nathan wrote in her opinion.

Ms Nathan did, however, grant Maxwell's motion regarding some counts being repetitive.

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"The Government concedes that Count One is multiplicitous with Count Three, and the Court further concludes that Count Five is multiplicitous with Count Three," Ms Nathan wrote.

"Count Five, like Counts One and Three, charged the Defendant's participation in the same decade-long unlawful agreement with the Defendant's continuous coconspirator, Jeffrey Epstein, to groom and sexually abuse underage girls."

Maxwell's sentencing is set for June 28, and the court will enter judgment of conviction on counts three, four and six.

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Maxwell, 60, was found guilty of five federal charges: sex trafficking of a minor, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and three related counts of conspiracy.

She was acquitted on the charge of enticing a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts.

A previous motion for a new trial due to an issue over a juror was denied earlier in April.

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