Thousands without electricity in Byron Bay region and in Queensland as waves top 10m in Tweed area. Follow today’s news live

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Sandbag queues ‘about an hour’ in Brisbane – Wells

The federal sports minister, Anika Wells, also spoke on the Today Show this morning from Brisbane and said it was the “calm before the storm”.

At the moment that’s the shortest it’s been in 24 hours. It’s a big couple of days ahead for south-east Queensland. We’re more than up to the task, but everybody’s doing their bit.

So everyone’s doing their bit and we thank them for it.

We know that there’s going to be damaging winds, there is going to be powerful surf, coastal erosion, and it will be followed by significant rain that can last a couple of days. So we’re really urging people to be alert, to be prepared, just like the SES is.