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General president Daly Cherry-Evans believes the Rugby League Players Association has put the ball in the NRL's court by imposing a media ban until the end of protracted collective bargaining agreement negotiations.

With the new CBA now eight months overdue, the RLPA last Wednesday announced its most drastic action yet.

Players have agreed not to talk to media on days when games are played until a draft CBA has been agreed upon, until both parties have met with an industrial relations mediator and until player entitlements return to pre-COVID levels.

It comes as the league and its players dispute several of the 100 items in the CBA, including the NRL's ability to lengthen the season without consent, access to and ownership of player data and allocation of RLPA funds.

With no matches played until Wednesday, Monday marked the first time players were available to media since the RLPA announced its strike.

"The message is loud and clear. We just want progress to take place," Cherry-Evans said.

"What we've done is we've put a stake in the ground. We really want this thing done.

"We don't want to spend our time worrying about a negotiation but this negotiation is important to the playing group so we want it done."

Cherry-Evans would not put a time frame on the resumption of normal media commitments.

"We want it done sooner rather than later," he said.

"The next move is up to the NRL to get us in a room and get it done."

Throughout the negotiation process, the NRL has maintained it has listened to players and acted in good faith but that it must ensure the long-term financial security of the code.

The RLPA believes it had little choice but to take strong action, given the current CBA can only roll over until the end of October before no agreement will be in place at all.

Sydney Roosters five-eighth Luke Keary said he could empathise with both sides of the debate.

"It's the RLPA's job to fight for our rights, protect us into the future, protect the income, protect the players and how many games they're playing, things like that," he said.

"But you can take yourself out of it and go, 'Well what's the NRL's job?'.

"Their job is to run the game, keep it viable, keep it sustainable into the future.

"But it's not going to stop the RLPA from trying to protect the players' rights.

"There's always going to be a bit of pushback and there should be. Because if there's no pushback, someone's getting pushed over."

Keary rejected the suggestion from Canberra coach Ricky Stuart last week that "95 per cent of players" would not know why the media blackout had been enacted.

"Communication has been really effective from the RLPA and the delegates," Keary said.

"The RLPA are constantly out, coming here (at Roosters headquarters) to feed that information back, they were here a couple of weeks ago.

"It's kind of an invalid argument."

© AAP 2023

Australia will sell locally made armoured vehicles to Germany under a $1 billion defence export deal.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Monday, ahead of attending the NATO summit in Lithuania.

More than 100 Brisbane-made Boxer heavy weapon carriers will be sold to Germany, one of the largest defence export deals in Australia's history.

"This is good for our defence, this is good for our national sovereignty, but it's also good for our economy," he told reporters in Berlin.

Mr Albanese said the sale of the vehicles, made by German defence manufacturer Rheinmetall, would be worth more than $1 billion to the Australian economy.

The talks with the German leader are expected to centre on manufacturing and clean energy, as well as security in the Indo-Pacific region and the war in Ukraine.

The discussions follow the marking of 500 days since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with the ongoing war among the key topics for discussion.

The federal government recently announced a package for Ukraine worth $110 million, which attracted criticism from the opposition that Australia's support is waning.

Speaking to reporters in Berlin, the prime minister reaffirmed Australia's support for the Ukrainian government and people.

"This is about the people of Ukraine, struggling to defend their democracy and their sovereignty," he said.

"We also support the extraordinary effort that NATO is showing, because this is a struggle that has implications for the whole world."

Mr Albanese's three-day visit to Europe will also include a meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins.

As well, he'll meet with the leaders of Japan and South Korea, who have also been invited to attend the NATO summit.

The leaders of the so-called "Indo-Pacific four" are set to discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine, along with the role of the region in Europe.

Ukraine's ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko thanked Mr Albanese for his leadership in supporting Ukraine, and said his nation was grateful for the military and humanitarian aid.

He could not confirm a locked in meeting between the prime minister and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, but hoped it would take place.

Mr Albanese met with Mr Zelenskiy last year in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, after travelling to Europe for the 2022 NATO summit in Madrid.

NATO leaders were due to discuss plans to open a liaison office in Tokyo as part of a push to strengthen ties in the Indo-Pacific.

But French President Emmanuel Macron rejected the proposal.

Former prime minister Paul Keating praised the decision and said NATO was straying from its intended purpose of a European-American alliance.

"The Europeans have been fighting each other for the better part of 300 years, including giving the rest of us two world wars in the last hundred," he said.

"Exporting that malicious poison to Asia would be akin to Asia welcoming the plague upon itself."

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson dismissed Mr Keating's comments as a "new low".

"It is in Australia's national interest that we have strong engagement with NATO, in particular that we stay in close touch with our NATO partners when it comes to the war in Ukraine," he told reporters.

© AAP 2023

Before flying south to enemy territory on Monday, Queensland's spine members and three of the greatest players of the modern era held a summit meeting on the training field in their Sanctuary Cove haven.

What happened next showcased how capable the Maroons are of winning a State of Origin clean sweep and putting NSW to the sword in game three of the series in Sydney on Wednesday night.

The Maroons will unleash Harry Grant as starting hooker, rather than bring him off the bench to replace Ben Hunt, and have devised a specialised game plan to get new fullback AJ Brimson into the game.

Before Monday's training session started Maroons legends Johnathan Thurston, Cameron Smith and Billy Slater joined all six spine members - Brimson, Cameron Munster, Daly Cherry-Evans, Hunt, Grant and 18th man Tom Dearden - in a deep and meaningful pow wow.

Maroons coach Slater and his two assistants, three of the sharpest rugby league minds to lace a boot, passed on their wisdom to the next generation.

Slater drove the training drills that followed like a man possessed. He kept repeating "we play free flowing football" as the players went through their paces. Grant was slick out of dummy-half and Brimson chimed in with precision.

Game three could get close. That's why Slater had his men prepare for a nailbiter. "It's 20-all with two minutes left," the coach said, as Grant positioned Cherry-Evans and Munster to slot field goals.

When asked about the spine chemistry after the session, Cherry-Evans said it was still a work in progress.

"A focus of how we play our footy is laying a foundation but then connecting as a spine. We talk about our footy a fair bit and with Harry starting I guess it is just going to give it a different look to start the game," he said.

"Make no mistake. We are just trying to improve on what we have been doing (as a spine). It has been good, but not elite just yet.

"We know how crafty Harry is. He is a fantastic player. You could probably argue his best days are in front of him, which is crazy to think."

Brimson will bring a different dimension to the suspended Reece Walsh at No.1.

"We are not just going to put AJ in and expect AJ to do Reece's job. We have got AJ in because Billy and the selectors believe he is ready to be our fullback," Cherry-Evans said.

"It is really important we connect as a spine and bring AJ into the game with his best strengths."

© AAP 2023