Australians onboard the government's first repatriation flight out of India have taken off on schedule and are now en-route to Darwin.

QF112 departed New Delhi at 20.05 Friday (00.35 Saturday AEST) from Terminal 3 of Indira Gandhi International Airport, according to the airport's live flight information.

The flight is set to land in the Northern Territory today at 9.20am (9.50am AEST) and passengers will spend quarantine at a facility in Howard Springs.

However, it's understood nearly half of the 150 passengers were not allowed on the plane due to COVID-19 test results.

READ MORE: Half of repatriation flight from India unable to board after COVID tests

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Of the planned passenger group, 72 were banned from the flight home to Australia after 48 tested positive for coronavirus.

The other 24 were family members of positive cases and deemed close contacts.

High Commissioner to India Barry O'Farrell said it was tragic for those who were set to be on Australian soil by tomorrow.

"This is a tragedy for them today, and equally for their families in Australia," Mr O'Farrell said.

"We're in the middle of a COVID crisis here in India and it takes 24 hours at least to get the results of a COVID test, so the likelihood of people quickly taking places on the plane is harder than it seems."

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Akriti Gupta from Melbourne is another passenger hoping to have her results cleared so she can board the plane.

"We are booked for the flight tonight and we are waiting for our COVID results," Ms Gupta told 9News.

"It's very heartbreaking because people here have already quarantined for three days in Delhi and have already said goodbye to their families."

The positive diagnoses means those Aussies will be stuck in India until they recover.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade were working to fill the flight with more passengers but the 48-hour pre-flight testing proved an obstacle.

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Qantas flights heading to India to bring back Australian citizens have also been carrying vital supplies to the subcontinent, including ventilators and oxygen concentrators.

READ MORE: 'Your borders don't just one day open up': PM's travel hint

Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne said today's flight will bring the total number of repatriation flights from India to 39.

"These government-facilitated flights will be focused on returning Australian citizens, residents and families who have registered with our high Commission and consular offices within India and will prioritise the most vulnerable people," Ms Payne said.

The next government repatriation flight from India is expected to arrive in Darwin on May 23.

Arrangements for further facilitated flights into Australia are underway.

Japan is further expanding a coronavirus state of emergency to three additional areas ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

The state of emergency is currently in Tokyo and five other prefectures. The additions include Japan's northern island state of Hokkaido, where the Olympic marathon will be held, as well as Hiroshima and Okayama in western Japan.

Bars, karaoke parlours and most entertainment facilities are required to close. Business owners who comply will be compensated; those who don't could face fines.

The expansion of the state of emergency is a major shift from the government's initial plan that relied on less stringent measures.

Japan has been struggling to slow coronavirus infections ahead of the postponed Olympics, which are scheduled to start July 23.

The news comes as an online petition with more than 350,000 signatures calling for the Tokyo Games to be cancelled was submitted Friday to local organisers, the International Olympic Committee and others.

The Olympics are scheduled to open in just 10 weeks on July 23 in the midst of a pandemic with Tokyo and other areas under a state of emergency. Cases continue to rise in Japan, where less than 2 per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated.

The petition campaign — called "Stop Tokyo Olympics" — was drafted by well-known lawyer Kenji Utsunomiya, who has also run for governor of Tokyo. He said the response was surprising but acknowledged that this was too little, and probably too late.

"I think that the media coverage puts a lot of pressure on the IOC, the International Paralympic Committee, the Japanese government, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the organising committee," Utsunomiya said at a news conference.

"So in that sense, I am glad I did it. However, in terms of the numbers, I think that tens of millions of signatures are really necessary."

Utsunomiya said the Olympics would divert medical services from the general public, which has been a rising concern as hospitals come under strains that could get worse as the games approach.

Organisers and the IOC say they will hold the games safely, isolating 15,400 Olympic and Paralympic athletes in a "bubble" and repeatedly testing them and the tens of thousands of others — judges, staff, sponsors, media and broadcasters — who will enter a country that has had its borders sealed for a year.

Japan has attributed about 11,000 deaths to COVID-19, good by world standards but poor in Asia where places like Taiwan and South Korea have been more successful.

There in no indication the Olympics will be cancelled with billions of dollars riding on it, although there has been opposition from the local medical community.

Last month, the British Medical Journal suggested the games be "reconsidered."

Pope Francis has appointed Msgr Anthony Ireland and Fr Martin Ashe auxiliary bishops for the Archdiocese of Melbourne.

The announcement this evening came from the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, confirming the Pope's appointments.

Msgr Ireland and Fr Ashe will support Melbourne Archbishop Peter A. Comensoli in his leadership of the Archdiocese, along with current Auxiliary Bishop Terry Curtin.

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Msgr Ireland and Fr Ashe have held a number of significant roles within the Archdiocese of Melbourne, including in parishes and at Corpus Christi Seminary, as well as other leadership positions.

Msgr Ireland, who was born and raised in Melbourne, has been part of the church for 34 years, since his ordination in 1987.

"I accept this appointment from the Holy Father with the hope that I can keep a positive balance and attitude whilst continually trusting in the Lord Jesus who promised to accompany us until the end of time," he said in a statement of his appointment.

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"The ministry of auxiliary bishop comes with no agenda. It is a ministry of humility; I am to closely assist Archbishop Comensoli in his mission as Chief Shepherd in Melbourne."

Fr Ashe, who was born in Ireland, was ordained in 1978 in Dublin before moving to Melbourne in September that year.

"In this time of pandemic, I see our Church as being a Catholic community in the world that reaches out and accompanies individuals and families, staying close to them in their need and bringing Christ's message of hope and sustaining love into their lives," Fr Ashe said in the statement of his appointment.

The Episcopal Ordination is expected to take place at St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne towards the end of July.

Nearly half of the 150 passengers scheduled to leave on the first repatriation flight out of India will not be allowed on the plane due to COVID-19 test results.

Of the planned passenger group, 72 were banned from the flight home to Australia after 48 tested positive for coronavirus.

The other 24 were family members of positive cases and deemed close contacts.

READ MORE: WHO updates advice on airborne spread of COVID-19

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High Commissioner to India Barry O'Farrell said it was tragic for those who were set to be on Australian soil by tomorrow.

"This is a tragedy for them today, and equally for their families in Australia," Mr O'Farrell said.

"We're in the middle of a COVID crisis here in India and it takes 24 hours at least to get the results of a COVID test, so the likelihood of people quickly taking places on the plane is harder than it seems."

Akriti Gupta from Melbourne is another passenger hoping to have her results cleared so she can board the plane.

"We are booked for the flight tonight and we are waiting for our COVID results," Ms Gupta told 9News.

"It's very heartbreaking because people here have already quarantined for three days in Delhi and have already said goodbye to their families."

The first repatriation flight is due to leave New Delhi after the ban on returned travellers was lifted today.

The positive diagnoses mean they will be stuck in India until they recover.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade are working to fill the flight with more passengers but the obstacle of 48-hour pre-flight testing will make this difficult.

READ MORE: 'Your borders don't just one day open up': PM's travel hint

The plane has departed Darwin, bringing valuable medical supplies to India, and is set to return to Australia tomorrow with the passengers who have been allowed to board.

They are due to spend quarantine at a facility in Howard Springs in the Northern Territory.

Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne said tomorrow's flight will bring the total number of repatriation flights from India to 39.

READ MORE: Every Australian adult could be vaccinated by Christmas

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"These government-facilitated flights will be focused on returning Australian citizens, residents and families who have registered with our high Commission and consular offices within India and will prioritise the most vulnerable people," Ms Payne said.

The next government repatriation flight from India is expected to arrive in Darwin on May 23.

Arrangements for further facilitated flights into Australia are underway.

A man left partially paralysed.

A grieving father in jail.

A judge called it a "completely unnecessary" melee.

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And once you scratch below the surface, you may find this devastating turning of events stemmed from the perfect storm.

Strangers, each in the midst of their own personal tragedies, when tempers flared, and lives were irrevocably changed.

A bucks party, around a dozen men had spent the day drinking, their (sober) driver taking them home in their rented van about 9.30pm.

Travelling the same route on the M-1 – tradesman Brock Prime, driving with a mate in the passenger's seat.

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The court heard it all started when Prime cut off the bucks party van in his car.

There was some interaction – fist-shaking, yelling.

The court heard the bucks party had been doing what bucks parties do – drinking heavily. Some had consumed cocaine.

It's here the details get a little fuzzy.

Police managed to glean there was a dangerous game of cat and mouse along the highway as the two cars chased each other, weaving through traffic.

Tempers flared in both vehicles, before Prime pulled over on the side of the highway, followed by the van.

Outnumbered, Brock Prime armed himself with a concrete trowel.

There was a verbal altercation, some pushing and shoving. Jordan Jonathan Baklas was angry when Prime damaged the group's rental car.

In retaliation, a man from the bucks party jumped onto Prime's car bonnet, smashing his windscreen.

Punches were thrown, some men spilled onto the highway, cars forced to try and dodge them.

Baklas delivered at least three blows to Prime's head, by then he was on the ground.

Jonathan Christopher Lawrence struck Prime with his own weapon, the trowel. First to his leg, fracturing it.

Then to his head.

The group then fled, leaving Prime on the ground, unconscious.

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They didn't even call an ambulance.

Prime's own passenger, his mate, had deserted him during the melee.

Paramedics found the young man, in a critical condition by the side of the highway.

They'd been called by witnesses, frightened by what they'd driven past.

A police appeal followed the next morning – how did young Brock Prime, a promising tradie end up with his head bashed in by what was clearly a weapon?

The bucks party assailants handed themselves in to Beenleigh police the next day.

The court heard the men initially downplayed their involvement.

Lawrence telling officers when they left the scene, Prime was "fine" and "standing". He was neither.

A judge found the group had attempted to collude, with Baklas telling an undercover police officer planted in his jail cell that he feared someone had "rolled".

Prime spent two weeks in a coma, and now faces permanent paralysis down his left side.

He suffers frequent epileptic fits, his younger sister juggles full-time study with her role as Prime's carer.

It was a double tragedy for the Prime family.

Their patriarch – Brock's father – had died suddenly six weeks earlier.

Brock had moved back into the family home to help pay the bills before he was hospitalised.

He wasn't the only man involved who was dealing with significant grief.

Brisbane District court hearing Jonathan Lawrence, charged with delivering the serious blows with the trowel, had been recovering from his own personal tragedy when the melee occurred.

READ MORE: Reduction in vaccine doses received by Queensland government 'due to GP rollout'

Lawrence's three-year-old daughter was killed in a manslaughter interstate a couple of years prior.

The long-winded court process had been finalised just weeks before the fateful bucks party.

While it wasn't a significant factor in the sentence he received, it may well have played a role in why he lost his temper the way he did.

Judge Byrne said in sentencing, it's difficult to understand how any of this occurred.

Two men, confronting grief, tempers flaring, in the perfect storm.

Lawrence has been jailed for five years, suspended after 20 months.

Baklas was sentenced to 100 hours of community service, with no conviction recorded.

Prime will never fully recover from his injuries.

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A woman has faced court accused of stealing a portion of her son's compensation payout from the Dreamworld ride tragedy.

Michelle Hanson and her son Tom, who was 16 at the time, were in the raft behind the ill-fated one that flipped in 2016, killing four people.

Tom was one of the first people to attempt to help Kate Goodchild, Luke Dorsett, Roozbeh Araghi and Cindy Low.

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A compensation claim launched by Ms Hanson on Tom's behalf for psychological trauma paid out $179,000.

It is claimed she kept more than $149,000 and only gave her son $30,000.

Because she was on the ride herself, Ms Hanson also launched a compensation claim which was successful, although it is unknown how much it paid.

West Australian police became involved when Tom approached them about the money last year.

Ms Hanson did not enter a plea and will face court again in July.

Her lawyer has indicated she will fight the charge.

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