Indigenous man's death prompts vax plea

A leading health expert says there won't be a great decline in the number of people being hospitalised for COVID-19 until there is a higher vaccination rate for over-40s.

An unvaccinated man in his 50s who died at Dubbo hospital was Australia's first Indigenous coronavirus death.

Labor frontbencher and indigenous MP Linda Burney said the man's death could have been prevented, blaming the Morrison government's slow vaccine rollout.

"We know that the federal government was warned back in March 2020 that this was going to be the outcome if they did not step in," she said.

The Dubbo man's death has prompted an urgent plea for Indigenous communities in western NSW to get vaccinated.

Western NSW Local Health District chief executive Scott McLachlan on Monday said the unvaccinated man's death was a stark reminder to the community: "This opportunity to get vaccinated is a lifesaver."

While there has been a jump in the number of jabs administered to the region's Indigenous residents - with the number almost doubling in the past three weeks - the rate still lags significantly behind the region's broader population.

Just 6.3 per cent of Indigenous people in the area are fully vaccinated, compared with 26 per cent of the general population while the majority of cases have been diagnosed among people of Aboriginal descent.

Today ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr is set to announce whether Canberra's lockdown will be extended again as COVID-19 cases continue to climb.

It's Equal Pay Day and based on current estimates it will take 61 days after the end of the financial year for Australian women to keep pace with men's annual pay.

Using Australian Bureau of Statistics earnings data, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency recently found the gender pay gap increased by 0.8 per cent from November to May to 14.2 per cent.

That figure means Australian women are, on average, $261.50 worse off than men per week.

Three Guantanamo Bay prisoners, locked up for 18 years over accusations they were involved in the deadly 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, have had their first day in court.

The three men charged in connection with the nightclub bombings were held in secret CIA confinement for three years, followed by 15 more at the isolated US base in Cuba.