Omicron has spread to dozens of aged care homes and the Health Minister has received an extraordinary warning that staffing shortages in the sector could become catastrophic if more workers go into isolation.A broad coalition of…

Wildlife rescue group WIRES has outlined what residents in flood-affected areas should do if they come across displaced native animals.

New South Wales and south-east Queensland are currently battling widespread flooding, caused by a series of violent storms and an east coast low.

Animals are attempting to escape floodwaters, with some sheltering in human structures and other "unusual places".

LIVE COVERAGE: NSW, Queensland battered by another day of extreme wet weather

Should you find yourself in this position, WIRES said you should attempt to remove any immediate threat.

"Gently place a towel over the animal and place it in a ventilated box with a lid. Place the box in a warm, dark, quiet place," WIRES said.

Once the animal is safe Call WIRES immediately on 1300 094 737.

FLOOD CRISIS: SEND US YOUR WEATHER PICTURES AND VIDEOS VIA THIS FORM

"Please do not give the animal any food or water, unless instructed to by a vet or WIRES," it said.

Residents are urged not to approach any of the following: flying-foxes or microbats, reptiles or large animals.

READ MORE: Mice, frogs hitch ride on snake to escape rising Queensland floodwaters

WIRES also explained exhausted and waterlogged seabirds will be landing along shorelines.

Should you come across one, WIRES advises the following:

"Seabirds become stressed very easily. It is imperative that they are quickly placed into a well ventilated cardboard box with as little handling as possible," it said.

"Do not attempt to rub them dry as this can be incredibly stressful and cause feather damage."

From there residents should call WIRES on 1300 094 737.

READ MORE: Full list of NSW schools closed and areas under evacuation orders

Contact Raffaella at rc*********@******om.au.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has sensationally dumped a $65 million pledge to build "up to 2000" car park spaces in his electorate under the controversial Commuter Car Parks program in a major about-face.

Ahead of the 2019 election, and with his own seat at risk, the deputy Liberal leader announced plans for four projects at Camberwell, Canterbury, Glenferrie and Surrey Hills train stations in Melbourne.

The Auditor-General's report into the $660 million Car Park Fund found the projects heavily favoured seats the government held or was targeting.

READ MORE: PM's department has 'no record' of staffing seeing list linked to car parks fund

In a statement to 9News, the Treasurer said he scrapped the funding after talking to local residents and traders and the local Boroondara Council.

"The Federal Government has decided not to proceed with the funding for the proposed car parks at Canterbury, Glenferrie and Camberwell," Mr Frydenberg said.

"The local feedback through the consultation process has been constructive and is appreciated."

In the lead-up to the 2019 election the government announced 47 projects under the Commuter Car Parks Fund.

The Treasurer's electorate was in line for four, second behind fellow Liberal Minister Michael Sukkar.

9News revealed last month the Camberwell project in the heart of the Treasurer's seat was going to deliver just 90 spaces at a potential cost of $142,000 per space.

READ MORE: Car park saga a dark blanket thrown over government decision-making

It was to be built at an existing car park at a shopping centre, not at the train station which is 450 metres away.

The local council was set to hold a special meeting on three of the car park projects later this month.

No plans have been made publicly available for a site in Surrey Hills. The state government plans to merge that station with a nearby one.

Labor's Catherine King told 9News last month: "The more you look at it, the more ludicrous the car park rorts scandal gets.

"The Treasurer needs to apologise to the voters in his electorate who took his promises at face value."

The taxpayer funding for car parks was allocated under the $4 billion Urban Congestion Fund program.

Despite having only built six car parks, and a handful of Urban Congestion Fund projects since its re-election, the government stands by the commitment.

"The Urban Congestion Fund remains an important part of the Government's plans to get more cars off our roads and to make public transport more accessible," the Treasurer said.

Looters are continuing to target residents on the NSW Far North Coast as they face a major clean-up and ongoing threat of further damage from storms and flooding.

The situation has become so dire, Murwillumbah resident Jean told Today she was targeted by a looter while she was still home sorting through the storm damage.

LIVE UPDATES: Kremlin claims it has seized southern city

LIVE UPDATES: Rolling waves of major storms to hit multiple states

Jean said criminals climbed over the mountain of debris in her backyard, came up the back stairs and even petted her dogs inside her home while she was hosing damaged property in the front yard.

"It's really scary – I had candles on so that people would know that I was home and looters wouldn't come," Jean told Today.

"I was still working my butt off out the front, downstairs, hosing off all my belongings – I literally had been at it since 6am, still going at 10pm in the dark, my livelihood out the front.

"Everything I've saved for, my hopes and dreams, then to find out somebody has come upstairs into my home knowing full well that I'm actually there, because I've got Christmas lights on, my animals, they had the balls to pet my animals, they didn't care that I was home.

"That's what's so scary, that they know that I'm a female on my own and I'm so worried now."

READ MORE: When will it stop raining in NSW and Queensland?

Send your weather pictures and videos to 9News

There have been several reports of looters targeting properties in Far North NSW and South East Queensland while people have been forced to flee for safety in floodwaters.

Several arrests have been made already with several communities across the two states targeted.

Queensland Police Minister Mark Ryan condemned the "outrageous behaviour" as tens of thousands of people suffer through the life-threatening event hitting both Queensland and New South Wales.

"Let me put this as politely as I can to those people engaged in that behaviour," Mr Ryan said yesterday.

"What you are doing is not just illegal, but you are also grubs – The police will find you and bring you before the courts."

9News European Correspondent Brett McLeod is based in London.

ANALYSIS: Increasingly isolated from the rest of the world. Cut off from accessing most material needs outside its borders. A future as a nation that is increasingly bleak and unknowable.

That's Ukraine. And Russia.

In his "look what you made me do" excuses for invasion, Vladimir Putin proclaimed the indivisibility of Russia and Ukraine.

LIVE UPDATES: Kremlin claims it has seized southern city

His actions have certainly left both nations with one thing in common: they are both much worse off than a week ago.

The war has created two possibilities that beforehand would have been almost unthinkable.

One is a nuclear attack. The other is Putin being forced from power.

"The trouble with what is unthinkable is that at times it must be thought about," historian John Lukacs wrote.

On the nuclear attack option, The Institute for the Study of War said Putin's rattling of his biggest, baddest sabre was indeed designed "to alarm Western audiences with the risk of nuclear war".

Mission accomplished.

But the second reason has been overlooked.

"To signal to the United States and other nuclear powers that Putin was not carrying out a dramatic nuclear escalation" – emphasis mine.

Russia has four levels of nuclear readiness.

The alert level was raised from the lowest to the next highest – not, as has been reported, the highest.

READ MORE: Russia attacks intensify as most of world condemns invasion

So while that's a long way from comforting, given Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, there is within Putin's threat some degree of nuance – even if nuance and nuclear war don't at first seem to go hand in hand.

To the other unthinkable.

Putin has total control of his government.

The old politburo system that could exercise some influence – and even turf out leaders – was scrapped along with the Soviet Union.

But as the sanctions start to bite the oligarchs and the military apparatchiks may start to look at their leader with a little more side-eye.

Yes, many will still be able to avoid total financial penalty by keeping their holdings in cryptocurrency.

But for some key players those lovely mansions in London, the mega-yachts on the Algarve, the Renaissance masterpieces in their New York apartments – for the foreseeable future they'll only be reachable by memory.

READ MORE: Boris Johnson: Russia's actions in Ukraine qualify as war crime

It's fine to be allied with North Korea but would you want to live in your own hermit kingdom?

"Russian dictatorship is not an old-fashioned ideological dictatorship," dissident and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov told the BBC.

"It's a mafia-like structure and nobody is going to stay loyal to the mafia boss if no protection is offered.

"In the next few weeks, we could see dramatic changes in Russia when Putin's power structure may crumble because he will be simply running out of cash."

More public displays of defiance and courage are happening every night on the streets of Moscow and St Petersburg.

The faces of the anti-war protestors are largely young.

They don't watch the heavily-sanitised version of the invasion playing out on television.

They are using their VPNs to see the vision, the horrors, the rest of us see.

READ MORE: What danger do cluster bombs pose?

More than 7000 have been detained so far.

They're inspired by the profiles in courage we're seeing almost daily of unarmed Ukrainians blocking Russian tanks.

Time will tell if the numbers will grow.

At some point, security forces may be faced with very large numbers of demonstrators.

They may then have the same choice to make as the East German border guards when the Berlin Wall fell: open fire on their own people, or do nothing.

Removing Putin from power would be revolutionary, but Russia has a history with that.

The collapse of the Soviet empire after 70 years of monolithic existence happened, to coin Hemingway, gradually – then suddenly.

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote after the French revolution: "Patiently endured so long as it seemed beyond redress, a grievance comes to appear intolerable once the possibility of removing it crosses men's minds."

There is a point at which the unthinkable becomes thinkable.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said yesterday’s violence on Parliament grounds was a sight she never expected to see and the area today was something akin to a “rubbish dump”.The grounds would be restored as quickly as possible and…

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A once-serene waterfall in the Blue Mountains in Greater Sydney has been transformed into a raging wall of water, amid record-breaking rain.

An east coast low is battering the entire NSW coast, with Premier Dominic Perrottet saying "much of the state is underwater".

The footage was filmed yesterday as the Lstmtns team explored Minnehaha Falls.

LIVE COVERAGE: NSW, Queensland battered by another day of extreme wet weather

The conditions come almost a year after western Sydney flooded.

"Last year was insane, our Lstmtns team had never seen so much water. Now almost a year later we are seeing even more water. It's incredible to see," a team member told 9news.com.au.

"An incredible amount of water that has fallen and that is forecast to continue.

"Our thoughts are with all those that may have livestock or homes at risk."

FLOOD CRISIS: SEND US YOUR WEATHER PICTURES AND VIDEOS VIA THIS FORM

In the first two days of March, Katoomba has received a whopping 93.4mm of rain.

The vision comes more than a week after the Lstmtns team captured another roaring waterfall.

Team members had to shield their faces as they ran past the wall of water near Echo Point.

READ MORE: 'It felt like a cyclone': Dangerous storms smash Queensland

Amid the extreme weather, NSW Police has issued a warning to bushwalkers to take caution.

READ MORE: 'It felt like a cyclone': Dangerous storms smash Queensland

A pair of hikers had to be rescued from the Blue Mountains on Tuesday after the track they were walking on flooded.

"Emergency services were called to Wentworth Falls, in the Blue Mountains National Park, after a 55-year-old man and 33-year-old woman needed to be rescued due to rising water on their walking track," NSW Police said.

"In light of this incident, and current weather warnings, police urge members of the public to avoid bush walking until the current wet weather eases, and if you do proceed, ensure you are well prepared for the conditions"

To be adequately prepared, NSW Police advises bushwalkers to:

• Pack adequate supplies of food and water, as well as navigation and first aid equipment
• Register your planned route and aim to stick to that
• Follow the map and walking trails and do not ignore warning signs and barriers
• Tell friends and family when you expect to return
• Carry an emergency beacon

The conflict is real. This is a full-scale war. And you can help from New Zealand.That is what Ukrainian couple Olya and Sergey Arykov, who now live in Waikanae, want you to know as their home country is under attack.Sergey moved…