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Scott Morrison has used a social media video to cast himself as a safe pair of hands in uncertain economic times ahead of an expected election call on Sunday.

In the clip the prime minister points to the natural disasters that have hit the country, the current unstable global environment and the risks facing Australia's economy.

"You always have setbacks. You always have imperfect information. I mean, things are tough," he tells the camera.

Mr Morrison claims 40,000 Australians are alive because of how his government handled the COVID-10 pandemic, with 700,000 still in jobs because of the response to the economic fallout.

"This is why as we go into this next election, what's firing me up - we're actually in a really strong position," Mr Morrison says.

He recalls a senior-year trade school he visited in Brisbane where half the class indicated they wanted to start their own business.

"How good's that? That's why I love Australia," Mr Morrison says.

But the video fails to address when the prime minister will actually call the election, with Labor leader Anthony Albanese accusing Mr Morrison of treating it as a "game" earlier on Saturday.

There are only two Saturdays left for an election to be held, May 14 or May 21, and any delays this weekend would mean MPs would need to return to Canberra next week.

Mr Albanese said that made it likely the election would be called this weekend because Mr Morrison didn't want to face the "scrutiny" of a sitting parliament.

"This prime minister last year gave up on governing and said he was campaigning," Mr Albanese said on Saturday.

The Opposition Leader said Mr Morrison was delaying the election to allow the use of taxpayer funds to spruik government spending and appoint mates to government boards.

Mr Albanese said Labor had a mountain to climb to win the looming election but it had a plan for the future while the government was "out of puff".

If the prime minister does not visit the governor-general on Sunday it will rule out the earlier May date, as a minimum of 33 days is required between calling an election and polling day.

It will also mean MPs will have to make the trek back to the nation's capital as the House of Representatives is due to sit on Monday.

A program for the scheduled sitting was released on Friday afternoon but it is not expected to go ahead.

Mr Morrison said on Friday his visit to Governor-General David Hurley was not far away.

"Electoral terms are for three years. The last election was on May 18 (2019) and the next election will be held about the same time," he said.

"You'll know very soon."

A potential hurdle delaying Mr Morrison from calling the election was cleared on Friday afternoon when the High Court threw out a challenge to his pick of candidates for several NSW seats.

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Hundreds of NSW residents remain under evacuation orders on the first day of school holidays, with forecasts warning saturated catchments will take days to dry off.

Heavy falls eased across much of NSW on Friday but minor flooding is likely to continue in parts of Greater Sydney throughout the weekend and several more days' of rain is expected to settle in again from Tuesday.

River rises were still being observed along the Hawkesbury-Nepean system into Saturday and evacuation orders remained across at least 10 low-lying suburbs.

The SES says minor to moderate flooding continues at Menangle, Wallacia, Penrith, North Richmond, Windsor and Sackville.

Rising water levels have been observed along the Upper Colo River and minor flooding is also still a factor at Putty Road, with a similar situation possible along the Macdonald River.

Water continues to spill at Warragamba Dam.

On the opening day of the Easter school break, some 1200 people were abiding by evacuation orders and another 1500 had been warned they may still need to leave.

However some orders were lifted for parts of both Emu Plains and Mulgoa along the Nepean.

SES Assistant Commissioner Dean Storey says residents in affected communities are being urged to remain vigilant amid hope restrictions will soon be lifted.

Recent severe weather events had taken a toll on communities and SES rescuers alike, he told the ABC on Friday.

"It has been a very tough few months for communities across NSW including in western Sydney with multiple, major weather events," he said.

"It is heartbreaking. It's been a very tough storm season, one of the toughest in recent memory for the SES."

The SES has received more than 2300 calls for help and conducted about 700 rescues since the rain event began on Monday.

More than 1200 volunteers were on the ground on Friday.

The body of a 68-year-old man was found in a submerged van in Sydney's southwest on Friday morning.

It was retrieved by police divers about 1pm but he is yet to be formally identified.

A flood warning has also been issued for the Orara River on the state's mid north coast, with minor flooding possible at Coutts Crossing.

While fatigued by the extreme weather, NSW residents need to keep following the advice of emergency services, says Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke.

"It will stop raining, it will get better," she said.

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Ukraine said at least 50 people were killed and many more wounded in a rocket strike at a railway station packed with civilians fleeing the threat of a major Russian offensive in the country's east.

As regional authorities scrambled to evacuate the vulnerable, European Union leaders visited Kyiv to offer President Volodymyr Zelenskiy support and assure him there would be a path to EU membership for Ukraine.

Zelenskiy called the strike on the station in Kramatorsk in the eastern region of Donetsk onFriday a deliberate attack on civilians. The town's mayor estimated that about 4,000 people were gathered there at the time.

Regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said the station was hit by a Tochka U short-range ballistic missile containing cluster munitions, which explode in mid-air, spraying small lethal bomblets over a wider area.

"They wanted to sow panic and fear, they wanted to take as many civilians as possible," he said, adding that evacuations by rail from the region, where Ukrainian officials are anticipating a new thrust by Russian forces, would continue.

Reuters was unable to verify what happened in Kramatorsk.

The use of cluster munitions is banned under a 2008 convention. Russia has not signed it but has previously denied using such armaments in Ukraine.

The Russian defence ministry was quoted by RIA news agency as saying the missiles said to have struck the station were used only by Ukraine's military and that Russia's armed forces had no targets assigned in Kramatorsk on Friday.

Zelenskiy said no Ukrainian troops were at the station. "Russian forces (fired) on an ordinary train station, on ordinary people," he told Finland's parliament in a video address.

Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksander Honcharenko said some victims of the attack had lost a leg or arm. "The hospitals are carrying out about 40 operations simultaneously," he told an online briefing.

The White House decried the "horrific and devastating images" of the attack which EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, in Kyiv with the head of the EU executive Ursula von der Leyen, condemned on Twitter as "yet another attempt to close escape routes for those fleeing this unjustified war."

Ukrainian officials say Russia's military is regrouping after withdrawing eastwards from the zone around Kyiv, where a forensics team on Friday began exhuming a mass grave in the town of Bucha.

The grave's discovery last week galvanised the West into toughening sanctions against Russia and speeding up arms deliveries to Ukraine.

Russia has called allegations that its forces executed civilians in Bucha a "monstrous forgery" aimed at denigrating its army.

Moscow has denied targeting civilians since invading Ukraine on February 24 in what it calls a "special military operation" to demilitarise and "denazify" its neighbour.

Ukraine and Western supporters call that a pretext for an unprovoked invasion that has displaced a quarter of the population and killed or injured thousands.

Ukrainian officials have in recent days urged civilians to flee eastern areas ahead of an expected attempt by Russian forces to gain full control of Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk, both partly held by Moscow-backed separatists since 2014.

The Kremlin said on Friday the "special operation" could end in the "foreseeable future" with its aims being achieved with work by the Russian military and peace negotiators.

Russian forces have however failed to take any major cities so far, confronted by unexpectedly strong Ukrainian resistance and dogged by what Western intelligence officials say have been logistical, supply and morale problems.

Kyiv has called on its allies for deliveries of more, heavier weapons needed to respond and on Thursday secured a new commitment from the NATO alliance to supply a wide range of weapons.

In the village of Yahidne, residents recounted how more than 300 people were trapped for weeks in a school basement, with names of those who did not survive or were killed by soldiers scrawled on the wall.

Reuters was not able to verify independently the villagers' accounts. Reporters saw one freshly dug grave and two bodies wrapped in white plastic sheets.

Ukraine's prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said authorities had found 650 bodies, 40 of them children, in the Kyiv region.

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