Mr Burke called a press conference in Canberra this morning to provide an update of the winter crop situation and harvest outlook across the country.

However he failed to commit the Government to any help for those farmers who look set to record yet another crop failure, or close to it, in southern NSW.

Mr Burke said there'd been long overdue rain in northern NSW and southern Queensland.

"There has been significant rainfall there over the last week," Mr Burke said.

"A lot of crops that had looked like they were going to fall over are now showing some strength in southern Queensland and northern NSW but the rain hasn't been uniform across those areas.

"Some patches there are still doing it fairly tough.

"Throughout central NSW the rainfall remains not good and hasn't been coming through in the sorts of figures we really hoped to have.

"Unless we get some good rainfall soon through central NSW we will be looking at some downgrading in the projections there."

Mr Burke said it was a pretty good outlook though in Victoria, South Australia, too, which could help underpin record national tonnage prospects, tipped by some analysts to be nearing 23 million tonnes this season.

"Victoria is having what used to be regarded as an average crop which, for many years, has simply been unknown in Victoria," Mr Burke said.

"South Australia is holding up similarly and Western Australia is looking very good.

"All of these projections and the official figures get released tomorrow.

"The areas where we thought there would be a significant downgrade, the rainfall has come through in time."

Mr Burke pointed to a nervous wait until harvest, though.

"Having the crops doing well still doesn't get you over the line," he said.

"You'll remember last time we would have had an absolute bumper harvest that ultimately was downgraded not because of drought but because of rain right at the end of harvest time.

"The nature of growing wheat crops nationwide is that people don't always expect to get a crop in every consecutive year.

"The challenge we've faced for some time is that the number of years consecutively that people can afford to have a poor crop, or no crop, is getting beyond what people had thought they needed to plan for."