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Queen Elizabeth, Britain's longest-reigning monarch and the country's figurehead for seven decades, has died aged 96, Buckingham Palace says.

"The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon," Buckingham Palace said in a statement.

"The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow."

Her eldest son Charles, 73, automatically becomes king of the United Kingdom and the head of state of 14 other realms including Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

Her family had rushed to be by her side at her Scottish home, Balmoral Castle, after doctors expressed concern about her health.

She had been suffering from what Buckingham Palace has called "episodic mobility problems" since the end of last year, forcing her to withdraw from nearly all her public engagements.

Queen Elizabeth II, who was also the world's oldest and longest-serving head of state, came to the throne following the death of her father King George VI on February 6, 1952, when she was just 25.

She was crowned in June the following year.

© RAW 2022

The head of the Reserve Bank of Australia has hinted that the central bank will take its foot off the accelerator and lift interest rates more gradually.

RBA governor Philip Lowe said the case for a slower pace of tightening was becoming stronger.

On Tuesday, the RBA lifted rates by 50 basis points for the fourth month in a row.

"We are conscious that there are lags in the operation of monetary policy and that interest rates have increased very quickly," Dr Lowe told the Anika Foundation in Sydney on Thursday.

"And we recognise that, all else (being) equal, the case for a slower pace of increase in interest rates becomes stronger as the level of the cash rate rises."

However, he reiterated that the board was "not on a pre-set path" and would do whatever was necessary to rein in rampant inflation.

Headline inflation hit 6.1 per cent in the June quarter, with the pace of inflation for the third quarter to be revealed in late October when consumer price index figures are released.

Several economists said Dr Lowe's rhetoric supported the view that future tightening will be downgraded to more moderate 25 basis point lifts, rather than the 50bps rises seen in recent months.

As such, NAB economists are sticking with their expectation of 25bps cash rate lifts in October and November, taking the cash rate to 2.85 per cent.

RBC Capital Markets economist Su-Lin Ong said Dr Lowe confirmed that the cash rate was getting closer to estimates of "neutral", which is where the RBA wants to get before hitting the brakes on the tightening cycle.

In his speech, Dr Lowe flagged three areas of uncertainty the board would be monitoring closely.

The first was the gloomy state of the global economy.

"Some slowing in the global economy will help bring inflation down, but a sharp slowing would make the job of delivering a soft landing here in Australia much harder," Dr Lowe said.

He said the bank was also carefully watching shifts in inflation psychology.

"If workers and businesses come to expect higher inflation, and wages growth and price-setting behaviour adjusts accordingly, the task of navigating that narrow path will be very difficult, if not impossible," Dr Lowe said.

He also said it was unclear how households would respond to higher interest rates, with the full effects of rapidly rising rates still playing out.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Thursday showed the trade balance falling sharply in July.

The balance on goods and services almost halved, falling from $17.1b in June to $8.7b in July.

Leading the drop-off was a sharp fall in coal exports due to bad weather disrupting production and exportation, NAB's Tapas Strickland said.

Imports rose by 5.2 per cent to $46.5b for the month.

In the June quarter, strong exports and slowing imports made a one percentage point contribution to real GDP growth.

Payroll jobs also fell for the second month in a row, largely due to workers catching COVID and other winter illnesses.

The 0.8 per cent fall in August followed a 0.6 per cent drop in July.

© AAP 2022

The federal government has trumpeted its successful bid to enshrine its emissions reduction targets in law, telling investors Australia is now "open for business".

The bill to lock in a 43 per cent greenhouse gas reduction target by 2030 and net-zero by 2050 passed the Senate on Thursday with the support of the Greens and crossbenchers.

The legislation was waved through the lower house - where the government holds a majority - hours later.

Despite supporting the legislation, the Greens and key crossbench members had called for more ambitious climate targets.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the passage of the bill provided certainty to investors and strengthened transparency and accountability for future governments.

"The message to investors is that Australia is open for business," Mr Bowen told the parliament after the bill's passing.

The opposition voted against the legislation, with deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley branding the bill as tokenistic and unnecessary.

"The 43 per cent target has been something of a vanity project by this prime minister," Ms Ley said.

"It's something he can take around the world and show that we're doing things differently when in fact nothing on the ground that reduces our emissions or global emissions has changed one iota."

Ms Ley says any emissions reduction must be done in a way that ensures reliable, baseload power.

"Unless you can demonstrate a plan that gets the necessary emissions reductions ... then you are failing the Australian people," she said.

Nationals senator Matt Canavan also pushed back against legislating climate targets and Australia's planned transition to renewable energy.

He told the Senate that ambitious emission reduction targets in Europe had led to power shortages.

"Unless something changes it's not too dramatic to say that almost invariably people will die over the European winter unnecessarily, because of these failed, naive, climate change policies."

Independent senator David Pocock secured several amendments, including firmer reporting requirements for the responsible minister.

A Greens attempt to increase the 2030 target to "at least 75 per cent" and impose a ban on new coal and gas projects was shot down.

But Senator Pocock also hit out at the government for branding its 43 per cent target as ambitious, after modelling showed state and territory targets would reduce Australia's emissions by 42 per cent.

"If one per cent is ambitious, Australians are going to be asking questions," he said.

The Australian Conservation Foundation's Gavan McFadzean said it was heartening to see legislators taking the climate crisis seriously.

But the government also needed to move quickly to turn the safeguard mechanism "from a broken tool into an effective scheme to cut emissions from the nation's major polluters".

The mechanism requires Australia's largest greenhouse gas emitters to keep their net emissions below a certain limit.

© AAP 2022