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Japan and Australia will boost their security and energy ties as the prime ministers of both countries spruik the need for peace in the Indo-Pacific.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida met in Perth on Saturday at an annual Australia-Japan leaders' meeting.

As part of Saturday's talks, the two countries have agreed to boost Japan's access to hydrogen, LNG and minerals to improve energy security while making a shared push to net zero.

The two countries will also look to help other countries in the Indo-Pacific with their efforts to combat climate change.

As part of an updated security agreement aimed at sending a message to China, Japanese troops will train in the Top End with their Australian counterparts.

"This declaration sends a strong signal to the region on our strategic alignment," Mr Albanese said.

He said there was a common desire shared by Australians and Japanese for a peaceful Indo-Pacific, "where democracy and human rights are upheld, the rule of law prevails and disputes are settled peacefully".

Mr Kishida said the two countries faced an "increasing harsh strategic environment".

"We concurred that our special strategic partnership has risen to a new and higher level," he said.

This is the fourth time Mr Albanese and Mr Kishida have met since Labor won the May federal election.

Mr Kishida's visit to Australia is the first by a Japanese prime minister since Shinzo Abe in 2018.

Before Saturday's talks, Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Alex Bristow described the reciprocal agreement as "tremendously important".

"It makes operations much smoother, and it's important that both Australia and Japan are US alliance partners, increasing interoperability," Dr Bristow said.

Energy resilience will also be a priority issue, he said, with expectations the two countries may be more forthcoming in explicitly stating the need to counter Chinese aggression in the region.

He said economic coercion used by Beijing could also be raised during the talks, in addition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

On Saturday, Mr Kishida pointed to the conflict as one of the reasons why there was now a stronger need to shore up resources and energy security.

But he also warned any use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine by Russia would be an "act of hostility against humanity", adding such weapons had not been used since the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Transitioning to clean energy and investing in new technologies to achieve net zero was also on the agenda.

"One of the greatest security challenges for our region and indeed the world is of course climate change," Mr Albanese said.

Australia will pump the minerals needed to build green technology into Japan as the two countries chase more ways to co-operate on the net zero transition.

Premier Mark McGowan will host a lunch for the state's business community and Mr Kishida later on Saturday.

© AAP 2022

All that was left of Bruce Saunders in the woodchipper was his legs.

However, his son Blake hoped that was not how his father would be remembered after Gregory Lee Roser was found guilty of a "most gruesome and evil" murder.

Roser, 63, received a life sentence after bludgeoning Mr Saunders with a metal bar at a property north of Brisbane in November 2017.

The 54-year-old's body was then fed into the chipper with the help of another man, Peter Koenig, to make it look an accident.

"My dad did not deserve to be remembered as the woodchipper victim," Blake Saunders said in a victim impact statement read in Brisbane Supreme Court.

He hoped his father would be thought of fondly as a good man who tried to help as many people as he could.

Indeed the happy-go-lucky Mr Saunders was kind to a fault, Justice Martin Burns said.

"A fault that probably became a fatal fault," he said.

Mr Saunders had agreed to help "so called friends" clear trees at the Goomboorian property near Gympie when he was killed.

The disposal of his body was beyond the imagination of any decent human being, Justice Burns said.

"But you are not a decent human being, far from it," he told Roser, who showed no emotion throughout.

Mr Saunders died after becoming embroiled in a "love quadrangle".

The Crown alleged Sharon Graham asked her lovers Roser and Koenig to kill her ex-partner Mr Saunders in a bid to claim his $750,000 life insurance.

Graham was living with Mr Saunders - albeit in separate bedrooms - and was in a relationship with Roser while also intimate with Koenig.

They had split but Mr Saunders was still "besotted" with Graham.

Mr Saunders even made out his will and life insurance policy in her favour.

It was a decision Justice Burns said could only be understood by "the clutch of evil - and a rare brand of evil it was - which took a hold of him".

So when Graham asked him to help on the property, Mr Saunders agreed.

He even paid for the chipper hire.

Roser said Graham first asked him to kill Mr Saunders soon after they had met.

Her murder plan evolved over months, at one stage borrowing a handgun from Koenig, the court heard.

"You were either too weak or too stupid to resist," Justice Burns told Roser.

After repeatedly hitting Mr Saunders, Roser received help from Koenig carrying the body to the chipper because he had a bad back.

Koenig fed Mr Saunders into the machine until the legs remained to "leave a bit of Bruce" so police thought it was an accident.

Roser moved into Mr Saunders' bedroom with Graham the night after his murder.

Roser and Koenig told police a "reckless" Mr Saunders had fallen into the chipper trying to retrieve his phone.

Work colleagues said Mr Saunders was always "safety first" as a third generation butcher.

Roser even claimed he had tried to save Mr Saunders by grabbing his legs.

However when his trial started, Roser changed his tune.

He said a plan by Graham had been carried out by Koenig, who he claimed had Mafia connections.

Roser admitted to "shamefully" assisting Koenig with the body's disposal and lying to police.

Justice Burns said the guilty verdict was a "unanimous rejection" of his claims.

Roser is eligible for parole in 20 years.

But Justice Burns said authorities should look long and hard before releasing him, describing Roser as a "particularly dangerous individual".

Graham, 61, pleaded not guilty to murder and successfully applied for a separate trial.

Koenig pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to murder this year.

Blake Saunders was supported during the five-week trial by family and friends.

"It's been very difficult for me. Not only was he my dad, he was my best friend - I miss him dearly," he said, fighting back tears.

© AAP 2022

Severe thunderstorms are set to belt multiple parts of NSW as cells track across saturated inland catchments and the flood-ravaged Northern Rivers.

"We're bracing for significant rainfall right across NSW today," Flood Recovery Minister Steph Cooke said on Friday.

A broad risk of showers and thunderstorms is menacing much of NSW on Friday and will continue into the weekend, Jonathan How from the Bureau of Meteorology said on Friday.

A severe thunderstorm warning is in place for parts of the Mid North Coast on Friday, with a risk of flash flooding in Coffs Harbour, Kempsey, Woolgoolga, Sawtell, Dorrigo and Macksville.

A second severe warning is also in place to the west, on the North West Slopes, Plains and Upper West, with a risk of flash flooding, large hailstones and damaging winds in Moree, Narrabri, Mungindi, Burren Junction, Boggabri and Collarenebri on Friday.

On Saturday and Sunday, rain and storms will continue in the east, with heavier falls likely in the northeast, depending on the development of a low-pressure system, Mr How said.

"These systems may produce heavy rain on Saturday and into Sunday and could impact highly populated areas including the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane, the Gold Coast in Queensland, and in the Northern Rivers in NSW," Mr How said.

Lismore and Byron Bay are of particular concern to the bureau over the weekend, he added.

While the systems are expected to ease into the middle of next week, flood impacts will be ongoing, with roads and infrastructure likely to be affected.

Some 15 flood warnings have been issued across the state, with emergency services keeping a watchful eye on the Gwydir, Namoi and Upper Macintyre rivers on Friday, after heavy rainfall on Thursday led to renewed river rises across the inland catchments.

Flood mitigation efforts are continuing in Moama, the sister town to Victoria's Echuca, which has been the focus of the flood threat in recent days.

The Murray River passed major flood levels late on Wednesday night and is now within 20 centimetres of the 94.77m height of a 1993 flood, the area's second-worst on record.

The bureau expects the Murray to reach around 95m next week, still below the 96.2m height of its worst flood in 1870.

Hundreds of people have been ordered to evacuate Moama and surrounds this week.

"We are very much on high alert," Ms Cooke said.

"Communities have been battered over and over again by natural disasters, particularly since the 2019/20 bushfire season."

Ms Cooke made the comments before opening a temporary housing village in the Northern Rivers town of Coraki, which is providing homes to 240 residents left homeless by flooding in Lismore and surrounds earlier this year.

Meanwhile, western Sydney residents are expecting minor to major flooding to begin on the rising Hawkesbury-Nepean rivers on Friday.

Several suburbs including Windsor, Penrith, and North Richmond have been told to monitor the conditions.

The Hawkesbury-Nepean region has already suffered two major floods this year.

The threat of flooding comes as the NSW government presses the federal government to share funding for the proposed $1.6 billion raising of the Warragamba Dam on a tributary of the Nepean River.

"This is an important project for the protection of property and lives in western Sydney," NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet told 2GB on Friday.

© AAP 2022