Australia live news: Albanese looks for China dialogue; more flood warnings for NSW

Business leaders welcome chance for 'tremendous reset' of relations with BeijingGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastA new report published overnight shows that Australia still lags most developed countries in the climate performance index despite the Labor government's attempts to improve the country's standing.Australia is ranked 55th out of 63 in the index, a slight improvement on its 59th place last year as a lack of national plan to phase out fossil fuel mining contin ues to hold the country back.The Business Council of Australia has hailed the prime minister's meeting with Xi as a "tremendous reset" and an opportunity to rebuild relations with our biggest trading partner after trade wars and spats about the pandemic and human rights. Our political editor, Katharine Murphy, is in Bali and will keep us informed every step of the way. She has this take on the comments by BCA chief Jennifer Westacott.Another summit, another country, and climate minister Chris Bowen is in Egypt for the Cop27 climate talks. He plans to give a speech later today criticising the World Bank for failing to offer a rigorous enough response to the climate emergency, and also suggesting that the architecture of the global financial system needs to be reworked to create better solutions to the problem. Our environment editor, Adam Morton, is in Sharm el-Sheikh and has filed this take on Bowen.Severe flooding continues to pose a serious risk to communities in the central west of New South Wales with major flooding expected in towns including Forbes and Bathurst. In addition, there are emergency orders in place for areas from the Queensland border to Victoria as far south as Geelong. Continue reading...