New comments made on Facebook have cast doubt on the sincerity of an apology by Liberal MP Andrew Laming, over allegations of online abuse made by two residents of his electorate.

The Member for Bowman was yesterday compelled by Prime Minister Scott Morrison to issue an apology in the House of Representatives, just an hour before a major 9News investigation revealed the complaints.

Single mother Alix Russo told 9News she was the victim of slander and false allegations by Mr Laming, including untrue claims she misappropriated funds at a homelessness charity she works for called Night Ninjas.

READ MORE: Andrew Laming apologises over online abuse allegations

Another woman, Sheena Hewlett, claims Mr Laming took photos of her in a park and rang her school asking for her timetable. She said her and her husband, a local councillor, are living in fear.

"I want to express my regret and deep apologies for the hurt and the distress that communication may have caused," he said.

"I want to retract those comments and issue a public unreserved apology."

But just a few hours after that apology, 9News obtained an exchange on Facebook.

"I'm actually surprised by the response – not as good as the skulling though," Mr Laming said.

This comment refers to revelations on A Current Affair last week that Mr Laming took part in a sculling race with a teenage girl drinking a bottle of vodka.

"In this climate – I willingly apologise – I didn't even know what for at 4pm when I did it," the post continued.

Ms Hewlett told 9News the comments prove Mr Laming "clearly isn't sorry".

"It clearly shows he has no intention of changing and nothing is going to change."

The Prime Minister today faced calls to sack Mr Laming for his "disgraceful" behaviour on social media.

"I called him into my office yesterday and told him to apologise and deal with it. He did," Mr Morrison said.

"He is very clear about my expectations."

Labor has slammed Mr Morrison's response to the revelations of Mr Laming's behaviour towards his constituents as "totally inadequate".

"In my view, Andrew Laming isn't fit to continue as a member of parliament," opposition leader Anthony Albanese said.

Mr Laming has denied 9News requests for an interview.

The allegations against Mr Laming come after sustained criticism of the prime minister over the last month for his handling of rape allegations by Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins and historical rape allegations made against Attorney-General Christian Porter, which Mr Porter strongly denies, as well as Mr Morrison's decision not to attend the March4Justice rally at Parliament House.

On A Current Affair last night, Mr Morrison told Tracy Grimshaw he was doing everything he could to understand the outrage of women.

READ MORE: 'How did you not know?': Grimshaw grills Scott Morrison over claims he's 'doing everything I can'

Australia's east coast is facing a trail of destruction left behind by the unprecedented flooding emergency as more regions are given the all clear to return home.

Water levels remain high across large parts of the state with thousands still isolated across Greater Sydney and the state's north-west.

Emergency services have been slammed with 12,368 calls for help and more than a thousand flood rescues over the last five days.

LIVE UPDATES: PM's solutions to fix violence against women in Parliament

More than 290 Australian Defence troops have assisted on the ground with clean-up and recovery, with plans to double forces.

Floodwaters have begun to receive on the Windsor bridge, although authorities say it may still be days before regular traffic would be allowed across.

David Fishburn, Maintenance Director at Transport for NSW, said water levels still need to come down further before engineers can make confident decisions on the safety of the bridge.

READ MORE: High tide to pose further risks to Queenslanders cut off by floods

READ MORE: NSW flood victim identified as 25-year-old Ayaz Younus

"There is still water under the bridge deck, and some of the key components we need to look at can't be seen yet," Mr Fishburn said.

"So we can't make that assessment yet."

While water levels are dropping, some communities are still only accessible via boat.

READ MORE: Stranded campers and dog rescued by ADF after being cut off by floods

The 2021 flood disaster in numbers

Over the course of the floods, the NSW coast has been drenched by at least 200mm of rain, and in some places, more than 400mm. This is more than three times the Sydney average for the whole of March.

The flooding stretches 600 kilometres from Sydney to the Northern Rivers.

The BOM's Victoria Dodd said the state had experienced "the most significant floods in decades".

"We've seen exceptionally high flood levels, high-velocity flows, lots of dangerous debris in these floodwaters."

On Wednesday, the BOM had issued flood warnings on 33 of the state's 40 river catchments.

The Hawkesbury River at Windsor peaked at 12.9m on Wednesday, the highest level in 60 years.

Records fall on Mid-North Coast

At Mount Seaview, in the hills west of Port Macquarie, rainfall records have been smashed in the past week, with 815 mm falling over five days. It's the highest total since records began there in 1960.

Further up the coast at Nambucca Heads, the community was one of the first in NSW to be hit with flooding last Saturday when 350mm of rain fell, swamping the March average of 161mm.

The river at Macksville has exceeded the major flood level , reaching 3.4 metres in 1950 – a one-in-50-year flood.

Two men have been charged in Melbourne and Brisbane by counter-terrorism police for their alleged involvement in running a "sophisticated terrorist network".

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said the network allegedly facilitated the travel of a number of Australian foreign terrorist fighters to Syria between 2012 and 2013.

Ahmed Talib, 31, from Melbourne, and Gabriel Crazzi, 34, from Brisbane, allegedly played "senior roles" in a south-east Queensland-based syndicate, which maintained a "religiously motivated violent extremist ideology and a desire to travel to Syria to engage in hostile activities".

Police allege Mr Talib, a gemstone trader from Doncaster East, used his family business to move money for terrorists, including Australia's first suicide bomber.

In 2013, the network allegedly funded Australia's first suicide bomber, Ahmed Succarieh, who killed 35 people at a military checkpoint in Syria.

LIVE UPDATES: New case of coronavirus in Queensland

The Queensland Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT), with assistance from the Victoria JCTT, arrested the two men yesterday.

Mr Talib's Doncaster East home was raided in front of his wife and young children.

While a property in Chambers Flat, south of Brisbane, was also swooped on by police.

"We seized $80,000 in cash, a number of gemstones of high-value, also various electronic devices that we will examine over the next period," AFP Commander Stephen Dametto from the Counter-Terrorism and Special Investigations Command said.

Police allege the two men developed networks in Australia, Turkey and Syria that were used by Australian foreign terrorist fighters to enter Syria, in order to join terrorist organisations, including Jabhat al-Nusra, and engage in "hostile activities" against Syrian government forces.

Mr Crazzi, a Queensland dog trainer from Logan, south of Brisbane, has been hit with charges including one count of incursions into foreign states with the intention of engaging in hostile activities, as well as one count of engaging in a hostile activity in a foreign state.

The maximum penalty for these offences is 20 years in jail.

READ MORE: Protester atop tripod removed after stopping traffic on freeway

The 34-year-old has also been charged with four counts of preparations for foreign incursions into foreign states for the purpose of engaging in hostile activities.

He is due to appear in Brisbane Magistrates' Court today.

Mr Talib has been charged with one count of preparations for foreign incursions into foreign states for the purpose of engaging in hostile activities.

The maximum penalty if convicted is 10 years' imprisonment.

He appeared in Melbourne Magistrates' Court yesterday and is facing extradition to Queensland.

The AFP said the arrests were almost a decade in the making.

Commander Dametto today said more people may be arrested in future, but reassured the public there was no "imminent threat" to the community.

"We believe there could be up to seven individuals, some are overseas," he said.

READ MORE: Boston bomber could have death sentence reinstated

"Today is an example of our commitment to discourage Australians from fighting overseas and holding people to account for their involvement in supporting terrorism and terrorist organisations."

Mr Talib had also been "designated by the US government" in regards to financial sanctions by their Department of Treasury for material support to Al-Qaeda, Commander Dametto said.

"I want to make clear that us and our partners take all extremist groups seriously," he said.

"We target the criminality regardless of the background of the perpetrators … we do not target ideology or the background of individuals."

Anyone with information about extremist activity or possible threats to the community should come forward and report any suspicious activity to triple-zero, Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or the National Security Hotline on 1800 1234 00.

Brittany Higgins has welcomed an offer from Prime Minister Scott Morrison to meet in person.

Ms Higgins went public in February with allegations she was raped inside Parliament House.

Ms Higgins claims she was sexually assaulted by a male political staffer in then-Defence Industry Minister and current Defence Minister Linda Reynolds' ministerial office in the early hours of March 23, 2019.

And while the claims have dominated politics, the Prime Minister has not yet spoken with Ms Higgins.

Brittany Higgins told 9News she was never made aware the Prime Minister was "willing to discuss my concerns about how my assault was handled".

"I welcome the opportunity to meet the Prime Minister to discuss how the workplace culture in parliament house can be improved," Ms Higgins said.

In an interview with Tracy Grimshaw and aired on A Current Affair last night, Mr Morrison said there had been an offer speak with Ms Higgins before she had aired the allegation.

"At the time, just before she departed, she was offered the opportunity to come and speak with me, with Minister Cash," Mr Morrison said.

READ MORE: Prime Minister's solutions to fix issues inside Parliament House

Police in Invercargill have found the body of an elderly man which they believe belongs to Raymond Horn, who has been missing for more than a month.Detective Alun Griffiths said the body was found this afternoon in a wooded area…

I usually sit quietly and resist any commentary, but I can't sit in silence anymore. I'm a proud Australian and an even prouder West Australian.

To live in such a diverse and culturally rich nation, is the envy of other countries. But then comes the cruel realisation, we do not all live in harmony.

That was tested, sadly, by one young Perth couple. Jay Shin and his pregnant wife were sitting in the waiting room of a medical clinic for a pre-natal scan, when they were taunted by another couple.

They were called gooks and nips.

They were told to go back to where they came from and piss off back to China. Jay Shin's background is Korean and he was born in Australia.

READ MORE: Chinese-Australians 'experience discrimination' amid diplomatic tensions and pandemic

The last time I was told to back to where I came from would have been in the early '90s.

It was by some uneducated bloke, pissed as can be, as I gathered with my family to watch fireworks along the Swan River. My family and I brushed it off.

In 2008, I was living in Sydney. As most people know, roads are intensely busy there and can easily fire up anyone's tempers. One man, I'd say he was in his late 50s, decided to take out his rage on me. I parked up at a set of traffic lights.

This man came to my window, banged on it erratically and accused me of cutting him off, which I'm pretty sure I didn't. I shook my head and replied in a polite and calm manner. He yelled back:

"This is not f—ing China. We're not living in f—ing China."

This one I did not brush off, so I threw this back at him:

"I'm a bloody Australian!"

He was shocked, stunned and silent as he stared at me. The light went green so I started driving off. But he had one last jibe:

"It's in your slanty eyes!" and I could see in my rear-view mirror, the man squinting at me, to prove that's what I looked like.

Through my career, I have embraced who I am and my heritage. I have never felt out of place.

But in 2013, I started presenting Nine Perth's 6pm news. Social media was most certainly established by then, and you were open slather.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CHaR8XQDvmg/

After my first 6pm bulletin was done, a barrage of tweets landed in my feed.

"Get this slanty eyed, flat nosed face off my TV."

"If I wanted chow mien, I would have gone down to the road to my local Chinese restaurant."

"Am I watching oriental news?"

"Asians are so ugly."

I caught up with some friends that evening and I read these comments out.

One mate, who is as Aussie as they come, was so fired up, he told me to stop reading them.

He was so angry for me, but I read them with some humour. I didn't want it to rile me up, because in my mind it is a weak, uneducated person behind a phone typing these words out.

Globally, the hashtag #StopAsianHate is trending.

I was saddened after news of the shootings in Atlanta, leaving eight people dead, six of them Asian women.

Rallies have been held in the United States, as the nation has seen an increase in anti-Asian violence.

Community leaders believe Asian Americans are being blamed for the coronavirus, which as we all know was first reported in China.

In 2021, I thought we'd have moved forward from all that.

Unfortunately, no.

For a couple to come under a racially charged attack, while sitting in a medical practice, waiting for a scan on the unborn baby, is just absolutely disgusting.

Father-to-be Jay Shin says he worries for his child, to enter a world where there are still ignorant people.

We are constantly learning and navigating our way through these situations, and I try to enter that person's mind, to figure out how it works to be able to speak, type, perform these hatred acts without a second thought.

I can forgive, but I'll never forget.

Jay Shin said he is willing to forgive the woman who racially taunted him and his pregnant wife, if that woman is willing to learn.

I hope for my children's sake, people are open enough to learn kindness, compassion and respect. A world where my children won't be seen as any different than anyone else.

Two women who falsified border declaration passes to travel from a COVID-19 hotspot into Queensland without undergoing quarantine have escaped jail time.

Last July, Haja Timbo, 21, and Diana Lasu, 21, lied to health authorities in order to cross the border into Queensland after a trip to Melbourne, which was a declared hotspot at that time.

The court was told the pair self-isolated upon their return to Queensland, limiting their time in the community. Lasu later tested positive to COVID-19, although Timbo did not.

LIVE UPDATES: New COVID-19 case in Brisbane

The pair were facing possible jail time or heavy fines after initially being charged with fraud but today plead guilty in Brisbane Magistrates Court to the lesser charge of failing to comply with a health direction.

The judge sentenced them to 80 hours of community service, noting they had been subjected to vile, racist abuse on social media which had been sufficient punishment.

No conviction was recorded.

Timbo's lawyer said she was "happy to perform the community service, as a sign of how sorry she is for what has happened".

A third woman alleged to have travelled with the pair, 20-year-old Olivia Muranga, is due to face court next month.

Tony Verdon, an accomplished journalist whose career included roles as editor and general manager of the Northern Advocate and senior positions at the New Zealand Herald, has died. Verdon was found in the water at the southern end…

By Michael Hall of RNZ The principal of a Northland Catholic college is pushing to know why a predator priest was sent to his school to take up the role as rector there in the 1970s.Pompallier College principal Richard Stanton…

By RNZ Former Child, Youth and Family carer Earl Opetaia has been found guilty of sexually violating and indecently assaulting young boys in his care.Opetaia had been facing 26 charges, including sexual violation, threatening…