Health News at Your Fingertips

The suspension of mutual obligation for jobseekers and others on Centrelink payments has been extended until 17 March.

A Department of Education, Skills and Employment spokesperson told Guardian Australia on Tuesday the suspension would apply to the following regions:

• QLD: Brisbane South East, Darling Downs, Somerset, Wide Bay and Sunshine Coast, Wivenhoe, Gold Coast.
• NSW: North Coast, Sydney Greater West, Sydney South West, Sydney North and West, Illawarra South Coast, Hunter, Mid North Coast

Before the announcement, mutual obligation requirements – such as job search and job agency appointments – had been scheduled to resume on Wednesday.

For more information, jobseekers can visit this government webpage.

Floods are causing “mayhem” around the Manly area, with some parents unable to pick up their children from school and those out on the streets greeted by flash flooding.

One video of Mackellar Girls shows students inside their classroom this afternoon watching as a white BMW floated past the room.

“It’s going in a pretty straight line, to be honest,” one of the students can be heard saying. “They better have insurance.”

One parent at the school said her daughter had to wade through water to get out of the school.

An email was sent about 1pm advising us to pick up kids from Quirk Rd. They were calling kids’ names as we arrived over the loud speaker to leave.

Water was over the top of cars and spilling into the bottom levels of the lower blocks. My daughter had to walk through knee-deep water to get out as she was in the hall. The hall had started to flood as it’s on Campbell Parade side.

On Facebook, another parent said she could not get to the school safely in time, and that her daughter had been moved to a higher level until the rain subsided. The NSW Education Department said it was working on a statement but it’s believed the school has now been evacuated.

“Manly Vale is where Mackellar is and all water from the dam flows that way! It’s mayhem around here,” the parent said.

The Roseville Bridge has flooded, with images showing cars unable to cross.

Resident Roslyn Jan said she went into an appointment at the Audiologist in Dee Why for an hour, and when she came back out the roads were flooded.

[There was] 10-20cm flooding in areas on Dee Why Parade and Oaks Avenue. I have a low car, a Honda Integra, so I headed home.

Another video posted by a resident who lives near Pittwater Road showed the water level had risen to just under the door handle of a car. Vehicles were stranded in the middle of the road.

“Yeah, we are locked in. Flooded,” she said.

As you might have seen earlier, the Roseville Bridge in Sydney has been shut to all traffic as severe flooding traps multiple cars.

Water is cascading off the bridge, which, despite being 17m above the river, is struggling to drain after being inundated with rain.

There are heavy delays on Warringah Road on Sydney’s Upper North Shore. The bridge is one of two points to cross Middle Harbour, connecting Sydney’s northern beaches with the north shore. It comes as an evacuation warning has been issued for low-lying properties near Manly Dam amid rising water levels.

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a road alert for all of Sydney on Tuesday due to poor visibility, slippery roads and flash flooding.

The rainfall in the Sydney region for 2021-22 has jumped well into the top 10% of wettest years, with Bureau of Meteorology records suggesting this is about the seventh wettest summer on record for Observatory Hill.

The chart below shows how the cumulative rainfall for 2021-22 compares with long-term averages.

The purple shaded section indicates wetter-than-average years, so if the red line for 2021-22 goes above this, it indicates an unusually high level of rainfall (the top 10% of years by total rainfall). You can use the dropdown menu to switch between locations.

You can see more rainfall and flood graphics here.

The Central Coast is bracing for swells of 4.5m this evening and into Wednesday, bringing dangerous surf conditions with winds of up to 25km/h.

Central Coast Council said it was on alert for potential flooding and further storm erosion of lakes, waterways, beaches and roads as an east coast low hits the region:

Crews are monitoring significant erosion particularly on some of the more northern beaches of the Coast such as Soldiers Beach, North Entrance Beach and Lakes Beaches, as well as some minor erosion around Terrigal lagoon due to high tides and waves.

We are continually monitoring coastal erosion along the Coast’s beaches with identified issues currently limited to beach access infrastructure in some of our northern beach locations.

We are also continuing to send further construction crews out to impacted regions across the coast to mobilise our combined flood and storm recovery efforts.

Earlier this week, a Natural Disaster Declaration was made for the Central Coast, enabling flood assistance for those affected by the storms.

Localised heavy downpours and flash flooding have hit Gosford, while a flood evacuation warning has also been issued by NSW SES for parts of Wisemans Ferry, which has been closed.

The river height is expected to exceed the major flood level of 4.2m today and into tomorrow. Flash flooding may also hit Woy Woy, Davistown, Empire Bay, Booker Bay and West Gosford with heavy rain and high tides from Brisbane Waters.

At 8.15am today, the Hawkesbury River was recorded at 4.61m at Wisemans Ferry, above the major flood level of 4.2m. Further rises were possible.

All Central Coast beaches are currently closed.