Australia news live update: flood warnings for NSW; police and defence personnel fly to Solomon Islands; Victoria records 1,362 Covid cases

And some more info on Victoria case numbers from AAP:

Victoria has recorded 1362 new COVID-19 cases and seven deaths, as the state’s full vaccination mandate kicked in for about a million authorised workers.

It is the highest daily number of infections reported since November 1.

The new infections bring the number of active cases in the state to 10,887, including 308 in hospital, slightly lowering the seven-day average to 307.

It comes as those in jobs on the state’s authorised worker list are required to have two doses of a COVID-19 vaccination as of Friday.

Industries on the list include AFL and other professional athletes, lawyers, journalists, mining workers, court staff and personal trainers.

A Roy Morgan poll, released on Thursday, found 76 per cent of Victorians surveyed believe an employee in Victoria should not be allowed to enter their workplace unless fully vaccinated.

In a further change to the state’s check-in system, the Services Vic app has been updated to allow parents and guardians to add their children’s vaccination certificates.

We’ve got a breakdown of the NSW Covid numbers today here from CovidBaseAU.

The Liberals have been speaking about the Chinese submarine a lot this morning.

The PM was on Adelaide radio this morning when he was asked about it – he said the government would not make a complaint and that it highlighted the rising tensions in the Pacific.

“People are not making this up,” he said.

“It does mean that Australia has to be on its guard and Australia has to stand up to those who want to coerce us … and slap trade sanctions on things like our wine, and our government is standing up to that.”

Peter Dutton was also talking about it on Channel Nine – he said that this ship would be doing surveillance.

“[The ship] will be involved in intelligence collection, signals collection,” he said.

“They’ll be looking to survey different attributes and have that general presence – let us know that they’re there.

“It was a prolonged [time] that they were very close to Australian waters off the east coast, unusually.

“I think it’s right people have a clear picture of what’s going on.”

As Scott Morrison comes to the end of a ragged parliamentary week, the organisation bankrolling independents challenging Liberal incumbents in their urban heartland has amassed an election war chest of more than $4m, and bolstered its advisory body.

Former Australian Democrats leader Meg Lees has joined the advisory council of Climate 200, as has the former Liberal party leader John Hewson, and the Labor veteran Barry Jones.

Bennett is asked about the number of items that have been found in the search.

“Every item we take that will be deemed to be relevant will be forensically examined. We won’t be announcing the results of those investigations.

“That is a role for the team and coroner down the track, but we are very happy with items in terms of eliminating people or proving what happened to William Tyrrell.”

Bennett was asked what the feeling was among investigators.

“Spirits are still high. The only frustration is the weather and stop-start [nature] of catering to the weather. Look, we are seven years into this investigation, we’re happy with its progress and we will keep going.”

NSW police force commander Darren Bennett says what they’ve found so far has “given them cause to keep going”.

Journalist: What sort of time frame are you looking at now?

“It will defend greatly on the weather and other items that are located. We started off with a time frame of between two or three weeks.

“I tend to think we have to double that now.”

NSW police say the timeframe of the search may be set back because of the weather.

“Eleven days in that search and we are still going. It is obvious to all of us that we couldn’t have picked a worse time in terms of weather. The weather has been atrocious pretty much since we started.

“The coroner has been kept appraised of our progress.

“The painstaking search along with evidence we’re gathered in the course of the investigation and we will continue the time-frame of this search, which may be extended now because of the setbacks with regard to weather and the processes we have to undertake if we find something.”

Police are about to give an update on the search for William Tyrrell.