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Political leaders past and present, judges and other dignitaries are among 700 guests taking their seats for a national memorial service for Queen Elizabeth II.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will address the service at Parliament House in Canberra, as millions of other Australians pay their own tributes on the one-off national public holiday.

The Queen died on September 8 aged 96 having reigned as Australia's head of state for 70 years.

Twenty years ago she declared during a visit to Australia her "admiration, affection and regard for the people of Australia will remain, as it has been ...constant, sure and true".

The national service will be broadcast live across the nation from 11am (AEST) and will begin with a minute's silence.

Up to six Royal Australian Air Force F-35A Lightning II jets from No.77 Squadron will fly past parliament at midday.

The Queen visited the country 16 times during her reign and was the patron of more than 20 Australian charities and associations.

She consulted with 16 prime ministers and 16 governors-general served in her name.

Former prime ministers Paul Keating, John Howard and Scott Morrison will attend the memorial service.

All eight state and territory leaders will be present, as will Governor-General David Hurley, state governors, justices of the High Court and religious leaders.

Cabinet minister Tanya Plibersek said it was an important day to mark 70 years of service.

"This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to mark the passing of a very special woman," she said.

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney said she would be taking part in the service, which she believed would be received "very respectfully" by Indigenous people.

"There is a huge respect for sorry business - it is part of Aboriginal culture and the reverence to the Queen in my view falls into that category," she told ABC radio.

However, she said there was a "complex relationship" between Indigenous people and the monarchy.

"You cannot divorce the issues of colonisation from the role of Britain going back through the ages."

Opposition frontbencher Karen Andrews, who is also attending the service, said it would be a "fitting tribute".

A 1954 painting of the Queen by eight-time Archibald Prize winner Sir William Dargie will be the centrepiece of the service.

The painting will be surrounded by Australia's floral emblem, the golden wattle, and some of her favourite flowers, sweet peas and dahlias.

Mr Albanese has said the service would allow the nation to reflect upon the Queen's life of service and dedication.

Former Australian Idol contestant Anthony Callea will perform at the service.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton will also deliver a short tribute to the late monarch.

Both houses of parliament will sit on Friday to speak on a condolence motion for the Queen and pay tribute to King Charles III.

© AAP 2022

Passengers on a school bus have miraculously survived crashing down an embankment after their vehicle was hit from behind by a truck on a highway west of Melbourne.

The bus was slowing down to avoid an earlier crash when it was hit, leading to two teenage girls and two adults being seriously injured.

The school bus was on the Western Highway at Bacchus Marsh in the early hours of Wednesday morning carrying four adults and 27 students in years nine to 11 from Ballarat's Loreto College to the airport for a trip.

"Quite miraculously, they've self-evacuated and other people, I believe truck drivers and that, stopped to assist them," Detective Inspector Roger Schranz told reporters on Wednesday.

"I would have assumed someone would have passed away out of this entire tragedy. So they're all very fortunate people."

Two teenage girls were flown to the Royal Children's Hospital in a serious but stable condition.

A woman in her 40s and a man aged 60 were taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a serious but stable condition.

Eighteen others were taken to various hospitals in a stable condition.

Ballarat Base Hospital took on 16 patients from the crash, with operator Grampians Health declaring a "code brown" to divert resources to its emergency department.

By 2pm on Wednesday, it dropped the code brown declaration, and an hour later, 13 patients had been discharged. The remaining three were admitted to the hospital and in a stable condition.

"We were very lucky here with seatbelts," Grampians Health chief executive Dale Fraser said.

"Our site sees far too many people every single day who run the risk of serious permanent harm or even death through road traffic accidents. I would love not to see them in our hospital."

Police will investigate whether drugs, alcohol or speed were factors in the crash.

Melbourne-bound highway lanes were expected to be closed for the rest of the day as investigators analysed the scene.

The students' parents were asked to stay away from the crash and contact Ballarat police station.

The coach operator said in a statement their driver managed to get everyone out of the bus before being taken to Austin Hospital for shock.

The owner of Little's Coaches also personally took 11 students and some parents to Ballarat Base Hospital in a separate bus following the crash.

Kangaroo Transport Industries (KTI) CEO Steve Buck confirmed in a statement that one of their B-doubles was involved and the company was assisting Victoria Police and the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator.

"The 60-year-old driver is a sub-contractor who has been safely driving road trains for more than 30 years," Mr Buck said.

"He was trapped in the cab and was among those taken to hospital and is undergoing surgery."

"Our thoughts are with everyone involved including the passengers and driver on the bus, our driver and all of their families and school community," Mr Buck said.

Nearby resident Ange Greenland woke to the sound of the air ambulance arriving.

She told AAP the crash site was "pretty nasty" and it was distressing that the young girls had to walk up the embankment after the crash.

"They walked up the off ramp to a waiting bus half a kilometre away," she said.

"I really was very angry because I thought if that was mine, if it was my child ... I could not believe how they were treated."

In a statement the school thanked emergency services for coordinating care and providing triage at the scene.

"Our caring Loreto community has deep concern for the injured and their families and we ask for their privacy to be respected," it said.

The school would remain open on Thursday despite the public holiday to allow students and families to come together and receive counselling, principal Michelle Brodrick said.

© AAP 2022

President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russia's first mobilisation since World War II and backed a plan to annex swathes of Ukraine, warning the West he's not bluffing when he says he's ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia.

In the biggest escalation of the Ukraine war since Moscow's February 24 invasion, Putin explicitly raised the spectre of a nuclear conflict, approved a plan to annex a chunk of territory from Ukraine the size of Hungary, and called up 300,000 reservists.

"If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people - this is not a bluff," Putin said in a televised address to the nation on Wednesday.

Putin said, without providing detailed evidence, that the West was plotting to destroy Russia, engaging in "nuclear blackmail" by allegedly discussing the potential use of nuclear weapons against Moscow.

He accused the US, the European Union and Britain of encouraging Ukraine to push military operations into Russia itself.

"In its aggressive anti-Russian policy, the West has crossed every line," Putin said. "This is not a bluff. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them."

The address followed a critical Russian battlefield defeat in northeastern Ukraine and showed Putin was doubling down on what he calls his "special military operation".

In essence, Putin is betting that by increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between the US-led NATO military alliance and Russia - a step towards World War III - the West will blink over its support for Ukraine, something it has shown no sign of doing so far.

Putin signed a decree on partially mobilising Russia's reserves.

Speaking shortly after Putin, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Russia would draft some 300,000 additional personnel out of some 25 million potential fighters at Moscow's disposal.

The mobilisation, the first since the Soviet Union battled Nazi Germany in World War II, begins immediately.

Such a move is risky for Putin, who has so far tried to preserve a semblance of peace in the capital and other major cities where support for the war is lower than in the provinces.

Putin has repeatedly railed against the US for driving NATO's eastward expansion, especially its courting of ex-Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Georgia which Russia regards as part of its own sphere of influence.

Putin said that top government officials in several unnamed "leading" NATO countries had spoken of potentially using nuclear weapons against Russia.

He also accused the West of risking "nuclear catastrophe," by allowing Ukraine to shell the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant which is under Russian control, something Kyiv has denied.

Putin gave his explicit support to referendums that will be held in coming days in swathes of Ukraine controlled by Russian troops - the first step to formal annexation of a chunk of Ukraine the size of Hungary.

The self-styled Donetsk (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republics (LPR), which Putin recognised as independent just before the invasion, and Russian-installed officials in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions have asked for votes.

"We cannot, have no moral right to hand over people close to us to the executioners, we cannot but respond to their sincere desire to determine their own fate," Putin said.

The referendums pave the way for the formal annexation of about 15 per cent of Ukrainian territory.

The West and Ukraine have condemned the referendum plan as an illegal sham and vowed never to accept its results. French President Emmanuel Macron said the plans were "a parody."

But by formally annexing Ukrainian territories, Putin is giving himself the potential pretext to use nuclear weapons from Russia's vast arsenal, which has more warheads than even the US.

Russia's nuclear doctrine allows the use of such weapons if weapons of mass destruction are used against it or if the Russian state faces an existential threat from conventional weapons.

© RAW 2022