By Eleisha Foon of RNZ A team of eight medical professionals from New Zealand have left for Tonga.The team from the Pasifika Medical Association (PMA) will provide mental health support to the kingdom – addressing trauma after…

South-east Queensland communities are bearing the brunt of more wet weather that is flooding streets and homes.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) confirmed the wet weather-triggering low had moved south to New South Wales, causing devastation in already flood damaged Lismore and the northern rivers region.

But more rain today will continue to inundate already sodden catchments in communities in the Gold Coast, with Dalby, west of Brisbane still flooded.

LIVE: 'Our worst fears realised': NSW floods escalate with multiple evacuations

Near Dalby, a man has been rescued after spending hours on the roof of his car after he became trapped in floodwaters.

Emergency services including police and a rescue helicopter were able to find the man and bring him to safety.

READ MORE: Streets are again under water in NSW's Northern Rivers areas

Tony Chard from Queensland Fire and Emergency Services said crews crossed over 2.5 kilometres of water to reach the man during the four hour rescue mission.

"The call was made by the person in distress," Mr Chard said.

"It is pretty extraordinary this flooding event."

The man, Rick Willis, said he hadn't seen the flood waters until he had driven into them, causing his car to break down.

READ MORE: 'Told nothing': Authorities accused of confusing flood messaging

"When me car died I wound the windows down, all the central locking locked up on me," he said.

"Just trying to keep level headed about it all," he said.

"Not trying to panic or anything. The water was up over the bonnet so all I could do was sit on the roof."

The man said he's incredibly grateful to all rescue crews involved.

"Just the efforts and the correspondence on the phone before anyone even got out to me," he said.

"Just making sure my wellbeing was fine and my mental health was fine.

"Thankful I can actually go home. A lot of people don't make it.

"This is why you don't make stupid decisions."

Mr Chard said residents are still not heeding warnings from emergency services, who have urged Queenslanders and those in flood affected New South Wales never to enter or drive through floodwaters.

He said rescues put everyone involved in danger and diverts resources from others at risk.

"It's very frustrating," he said.

"We've had multiple rescues in the last three days.

"We believe this rescue was totally avoidable."

Nineteen people have died in floods in Queensland alone since the start of January, with two men discovered dead in floodwaters this week.

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The Condamine River remains at risk of major flooding.

"The Condamine River here right now is still rising very slowly, but we expect the river to be maintaining his height for the next two days," Mr Charb said.

The BoM confirmed a band of rain is still hovering over the south-east coast with rainfall predicted to ease later today.

O'Reilly, south-west of the Gold Coast has received the most rainfall today with 58 millimetres recorded in the last 24 hours.

On the Gold Coast, a major clean up is underway to clear debris from streets and beaches after the south of the city became flooded.

Border communities remain inundated with water with several business owners fighting to reopen after becoming swamped for the second time in weeks.

While Brisbane avoided major flooding, streets became drenched yesterday delaying repair works to last month's major flood event.

As much of the region still works to clean up flood damages, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk condemned the federal government for their budget response to the state's flood recovery.

"Tonight's Federal Budget has failed to deliver Queensland our fair share of health care and flood disaster recovery funding," she said via social media.

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South of Brisbane, hundreds of inundated roads are beginning to reopen.

A moderate flood warning remains for the Macintyre River, with minor flood warnings remaining for the Bokhara River and Charleys Creek and the Logan River.

There is also a flood Warning for the Albert River with the Brisbane River catchment on flood watch.

Tug boats began working to dislodge a stranded container ship in the US today, more than two weeks after it ran aground in the Chesapeake Bay.

From shore, three tug boats could be seen pulling on taut lines attached to the rear of the 305-metre Ever Forward, sending puffs of smoke into the air.

Dozens of people gathered at a park nearby to watch the work on Tuesday afternoon (local time).

READ MORE: The secretive oil-rich state where Russian oligarchs are fleeing to

The ship operated by Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine Corporation was headed from the Port of Baltimore to Norfolk, Virginia, on March 13 when it ran aground north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, in Maryland.

Officials have said there were no reports of injuries, damage or pollution.

A salvage company began dredging around the ship a week later and Evergreen said in a statement today that enough material has been displaced for the attempts to free the vessel.

The plan was for five tugboats to work together in the effort and to reduce the ballast water on Ever Forward to lighten the ship, Evergreen said.

At noon, officials extended a 457-metre safety zone around the ship to 914 metres, closing the navigation channel to commercial traffic until midnight.

If the ship is not refloated today, dredging will start again and a second attempt will be made on Sunday, officials said.

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If both attempts at freeing the ship are unsuccessful, the removal of containers will have to begin, according to a marine safety information bulletin.

The Coast Guard has said they have not yet determined what caused the Ever Forward to run aground.

The ship ran aground outside the shipping channel and has not been blocking navigation, unlike last year’s high-profile grounding in the Suez Canal of its sister vessel, the Ever Given, which disrupted the global supply chain for days.

READ MORE: Tens of thousands kiss goodbye to NSW and Victoria during pandemic

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Images of Pluto captured by NASA's New Horizons mission have revealed a new surprise: ice volcanoes.

The spacecraft performed a fly-by of the dwarf planet and its moons in July 2015, and the insights gathered then are still rewriting nearly everything scientists understand about Pluto.

Pluto was relegated to dwarf planet status in 2006 when the International Astronomical Union created a new definition for planets, and Pluto didn't fit the criteria.

READ MORE: Winners and Losers of the 2022 Federal Budget

The dwarf planet exists on the edge of our solar system in the Kuiper Belt, and it's the larger of the many frozen objects there orbiting far from the sun.

The icy world, which has an average temperature of negative 232C, is home to mountains, valleys, glaciers, plains and craters.

If you were to stand on the surface, you would see blue skies with red snow.

A new photo analysis showed a bumpy region on Pluto that doesn't look like any other part of the small world — or the rest of our cosmic neighbourhood.

"We found a field of very large icy volcanoes that look nothing like anything else we have seen in the solar system," said study author Kelsi Singer, senior research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

A study detailing the findings was published yesterday in the journal Nature Communications.

The region is located southwest of the Sputnik Planitia ice sheet, which covers an ancient impact basin stretching 1000 kilometres across.

Largely made of bumpy water ice, it's filled with volcanic domes. Two of the largest are known as Wright Mons and Piccard Mons.

Wright Mons is about four to five kilometres tall and spans 150 kilometres, while Piccard Mons reaches about seven kilometres high and is 225 kilometres wide.

Wright Mons is considered to be similar in volume to the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii, which is one of the biggest volcanoes on Earth.

Some of the domes observed in the images merge together to form even bigger mountains, Professor Singer said.

But what could have created them? Ice volcanoes.

Ice volcanoes have been observed elsewhere in our solar system. They move material from the subsurface up to the surface and create new terrain.

In this case, it was water that quickly became ice once it reached the frigid temperatures of Pluto's surface.

READ MORE: PM rejects 'bully' claim after Liberal Senator's ferocious tirade

"The way these features look is very different than any volcanoes across the solar system, either icy examples or rocky volcanoes," Professor Singer said.

"They formed as mountains, but there is no caldera at the top, and they have large bumps all over them."

While Pluto has a rocky core, scientists have long believed that the planet lacked much interior heating, which is needed to spur volcanism.

To create the region Professor Singer and her team studied, there would have been several eruption sites.

The research team also noted that the area doesn't have any impact craters, which can be seen across Pluto's surface, which suggests that the ice volcanoes were active relatively recently — and that Pluto's interior has more residual heat than expected, Professor Singer said.

"This means Pluto has more internal heat than we thought it would, which means we don't fully understand how planetary bodies work," she said.

The ice volcanoes probably formed "in multiple episodes" and were likely active as recently as 100 million to 200 million years ago, which is young geologically speaking, Professor Singer added.

If you were to witness an ice volcano erupt on Pluto, it might look a little different than you expect.

"The icy material was probably more of a slushy mix of ice and water or more like toothpaste while it flowed out of a volcanic vent onto the surface of Pluto," Professor Singer said.

"It is so cold on the surface of Pluto that liquid water cannot remain there for long. In some cases, the flow of material formed the massive domes that we see, as well as the lumpy terrain found everywhere in this region."

When New Horizons flew by this region, the team didn't witness any current ice volcano activity, but they were only able to see the area for about a day.

It's possible that the ice volcanoes are still active.

"They could be like volcanoes on Earth that remain dormant for some time and then are active again," she said.

READ MORE: Another evacuation order for Lismore as Bureau issues major flood warning

Pluto once had a subsurface ocean, and finding these ice volcanoes could suggest that the subsurface ocean is still present — and that liquid water could be close to the surface.

Combined with the idea that Pluto has a warmer interior than previously believed, the findings raise intriguing questions about the dwarf planet's potential habitability.

"There are still a lot of challenges for any organisms trying to survive there," Professor Singer said.

"They would still need some source of continual nutrients, and if the volcanism is episodic and thus the heat and water availability is variable, that is sometimes tough for organisms as well."

Investigating Pluto's intriguing subsurface would require sending an orbiter to the distant world.

"If we did send a future mission, we could use ice-penetrating radar to peer directly into Pluto and possibly even see what the volcanic plumbing looks like," Professor Singer said.

Fourteen Covid-related deaths were reported alongside 15,918 Covid-19 community cases yesterday as the Government announced a new service that aims to give hundreds of thousands of people in rural and remote areas better access to…

Amid $8.6 billion of spending, it's understandable some things in the Federal Budget might slip below the radar.

Beyond the headline-grabbing cost of living measures, ballooning debt and fuel relief, there's plenty of other stuff the government has to address that more rarely makes the news.

Here's some you may have missed.

$250 PAYMENTS: Who is eligible?

TWO-MINUTE GUIDE: The key Federal Budget figures

WILL I GET A TAX CUT?: The $420 offset explained

MEET THE SAUNDERS: How a hypothetical family will benefit

PROPERTY SCHEME EXPANDED: More places for homebuying program

PARENTAL LEAVE CHANGES: What it means for mums and dads

The Jubilee trees

A slice of $20.3 million has been set aside to provide three years' worth of grants for "community-led tree planting projects".

But not just any projects – these are specifically tree-plantings to mark Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee.

The government noted that Her Majesty had planted an estimated 1500 trees during her 70-year-reign.

Every federal electorate in Australia has been allocated up to $100,000 for up to 10 grants.

New home in the Solomon Islands

The timing is probably coincidence, but the government has allocated $65.2 million across four years to build and maintain "a new Chancery" for the Australian High Commission to the Solomon Islands in the capital city of Honiara.

The budget papers noted this was "in line with the Pacific Step-Up".

However, it also comes after news that China and the Solomon Islands had settled on a deal for China to build a naval base in the Pacific nation – a move Australia has regarded with dismay.

READ MORE: PM rejects 'bully' claim after Liberal Senator's ferocious tirade

Black Summer grants extended

An extra $116.4 million will be allocated over three years through the Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Grant Program, increasing the total funding to $390 million.

The grants provide support for community projects to assist with both bushfire recovery and future resilience.

The Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20 were among Australia's worst, and many communities have not yet recovered from the disaster.

Thousands of homes were destroyed and 26 people killed.

READ MORE: 'Our worst fears have been realised': NSW floods escalate

War crimes investigation boost

The Office of the Special Investigator is set to benefit from $6.7 million in 2022-23 to support the investigation and prosecution of potential war crimes in Afghanistan.

The majority of the funding – $3.9 million – will go to the Attorney-General's Department to advise the OSI on international law, get legal assistance from foreign jurisdictions, and protect national security information.

The remaining $2.8 million goes to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to provide legal advice, including training for investigators and brief preparation.

Millions for mozzie virus

The emergence of Japanese Encephalitis in Australia has prompted a $69 million funding package across two years from the government.

This will cover 135,000 doses of vaccine, health surveillance and modelling, funding for states and territories, and a national communications campaign.

More cameras in Parliament

The government will provide $29.7 million over four years for upgraded security at Parliament House.

This will include better CCTV, upgraded screening equipment, and an "expanded" Parliamentary Security Operations Room.

After the first four years, $800,000 a year has been allocated for upkeep.

Record cyber-spy package

In what's being touted as the largest intelligence and cyber-security upgrade in Australian history, $9.9 billion over 10 years is being funnelled into the Australian Signals Directorate to deliver REDSPICE.

That's the Resilience, Effects, Defence, Space, Intelligence, Cyber and Enablers package.

The government claimed it would double the ASD's size, with 1900 new jobs in the next decade.

It is also part of Australia's commitment to Five Eyes and AUKUS partners.

"REDSPICE will triple ASD's offensive cyber capabilities and double its cyber hunt and response activities, preserving ASD's capability edge and delivering strategic advantage for Australia over the coming decade and beyond," the budget paper said.

"The package will help ASD to keep pace with the rapid growth of cyber capabilities of potential adversaries, as well as being able to counter attack and protect our most critical systems."

Haka Tourism Group founder Ryan Sanders first learnt Earnscleugh Station Homestead was for sale when a staff member sent him the link as a possible site for luxury backpackers accommodation.He had other ideas, sending it to his…

Last night's Federal Budget – depending on how you saw it – was either a cynical cash splash designed to buy votes at an election or a carefully managed response to the soaring cost of living.

In the end, it was likely that both opinions were true: A one-off $250 payment for pensioners will fill fridges and fuel tanks for a week or two, and fuel prices will ease their way out of headlines due to a cut in the fuel excise.

But the fine print of the Budget reveals that the cost of living for ordinary Australians is not going to get any better.

READ MORE: Winners and Losers of the 2022 Federal Budget

$250 PAYMENTS: Who is eligible?

WILL I GET A TAX CUT?: The $420 offset explained

Currently the headline rate of inflation (or the rate at which the cost of goods and services grows) is sitting at 3.5 per cent.

Treasury forecasts released in the Budget predict inflation will rise to 4.25 per cent by the middle of this year, before declining slightly to 3 per cent by mid next year.

In real world terms that means the cost of living will spike through winter – and some economists even think that Treasury is being conservative in its estimates.

"I do think the risks are that inflation might be higher than what the Treasury is forecasting next financial year," says Peter Munckton, Chief Economist at BOQ Group.

"They believe that the reduction in the fuel price levy will take some of the heat from inflation. It will.

"But there is plenty of inflation in the pipeline. And Government taxes is only one part of the oil price."

MEET THE SAUNDERS: How a hypothetical family will benefit

PROPERTY SCHEME EXPANDED: More places for homebuying program

According to Munckton, the Treasury forecasts all but confirm that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) needs to lift interest rates this year.

"The Budget has few immediate implications for monetary policy. An economy with an inflation rate that is likely to be above 4 per cent and an unemployment rate likely to be under 4 per cent does not need a cash rate of 0.1 per cent," he forecasts.

"I now look for the first cash rate move in June, with a year-end cash rate target of 0.75-1 per cent."

As inflation rises, so too does interest rates – potentially hitting mortgage-stressed families with the double whammy of more expensive repayments and higher expenses.

"Talk from some economists of the spending initiatives in the budget driving up inflation and increasing mortgage payments are a concern," said Peter White, Managing Director of the Finance Brokers Association of Australia.

"We know that interest rates will likely rise soon anyway, but we also know that after such a long period with no rate rises, many people are not prepared.

"Therefore the Government must ensure that post-budget they do what they can to keep rates as affordable as possible."

TWO-MINUTE GUIDE: The key Federal Budget figures

PARENTAL LEAVE CHANGES: What it means for mums and dads

As for the fuel excise cuts, well some experts are doubtful that the Government will be able to enforce that savings are passed on to motorists.

"It is questionable though whether these cuts will reduce petrol prices. In the short term, the impact of these cuts will depend on what happens with global oil prices," says Hussein Dia, Professor of Future Urban Mobility at the Swinburne University of Technology.

"The fuel excise tax is a fixed amount per litre regardless of market price. So if the price of oil continues to go up, the 22 cents reduction may be eaten up quickly by the sharp increase in global petrol prices in the coming days or weeks.

"And if the war is prolonged or escalated, oil prices are expected to reach as high as $US150 a barrel, which would push petrol prices across the nation to nearly $2.50 a litre.

"There is also no guarantee that any cost reduction in fuel excise will be passed by retailers to consumers."

National Party leader Christopher Luxon has given his tick of approval to the likelihood of Auckland Mayor Phil Goff becoming High Commissioner to London. As reported by the NZ Herald on Monday, Auckland’s current mayor Phil Goff…