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Federal Labor MP Sharon Bird will quit politics when Australia heads to the polls after holding the NSW seat of Cunningham for more than 17 years.
Ms. Bird holds the electorate in the NSW Illawarra region, taking in Wollongong, with a margin of more than 13 percent.
She has been re-elected five times after first taking the seat in 2004.
"This has not been an easy decision to reach," Ms. Bird said on Friday of her pending retirement at the election due by May 2022.
"However I am now at a stage of my life where I need to focus more fully on the people I love in my family, who have given years of total support to me and lived with my regular absences knowing how important my work has been to our community.
"I want to now repay that and give them much more of my time."
Ms. Bird briefly held the portfolios of higher education, regional development, and road safety under the Gillard and Rudd governments in 2013.
She indicated she would campaign with the opposition's new candidate in the lead-up to the election.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese congratulated Ms. Bird for being an outstanding representative for Wollongong.
"Your friendship, passion, and commitment particularly to young people receiving skills and opportunities will be missed when you retire at the next election," Mr. Albanese tweeted.
Other retiring Labor MPs include Chris Hayes from the western Sydney seat of Fowler, Julie Owens from Parramatta, and Joel Fitzgibbon from the NSW electorate of Hunter.
Images: Sharon Bird Facebook
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Tim Paine has quit as Test captain after being investigated by Cricket Australia for allegedly sending explicit messages to a female co-worker.
The veteran wicketkeeper, who has been facing a race against time to be fit for the first Ashes Test on December 8, has been named in a News Corp report as being at the centre of a sexting scandal.
Paine, 36, fronted media in Hobart on Friday to announce he was resigning.
It is understood the messages date back to 2017, months before Paine was recalled to the Test team after a seven-year absence.
Paine was elevated to the captaincy in March 2018 following the explosive fallout from the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa.
Fast bowler Pat Cummins is Australia's current vice-captain and had been tipped to assume the role once Paine retired.
© AAP 2021
Image: Mike Egerton/PA Wire
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A supplied image obtained Saturday 13th Sept, 2014 shows three year old boy William Tyrrell, missing from a home in Kendall NSW (AAP IMAGE/NSW POLICE)
Detectives investigating the disappearance of three-year-old NSW boy William Tyrrell have narrowed the focus of their seven-year probe to a single suspect.
Police Commissioner Mick Fuller says there has been a significant breakthrough in the case and he's confident police will solve the mystery.
"There is certainly one person in particular that we are looking closely at," he told Sydney radio 2GB on Tuesday.
"I certainly don't want to declare too much because again in these cases you do not want to compromise a potential outcome.
"Officers have been working tirelessly to get to this point where we are searching land, again using the best technology available."
The case of the missing boy in the Spider-Man suit has captured the nation's attention since William disappeared from the garden of his foster grandmother's Kendall home on the NSW mid-north coast in 2014.
On Monday, NSW Police announced they were conducting a new "high intensity" search for William's remains near the Kendall home. Police are being assisted in the search by 30 SES volunteers.
Vision of the search area on Tuesday showed the volunteers using chainsaws and other heavy-duty equipment to clear dense bushland, including felling big trees.
Asked about reports police were seeking an apprehended violence order against a person or persons of interest in the case, Police Minister David Elliott was also reticent to say too much.
"It is a matter of public record that police are issuing AVOs," he told the Seven Network.
"We need to be cautious about how we discuss that in the public domain so smart lawyers don't use our comments to neutralise a conviction."
Earlier, he told the Nine Network it was "a matter of public record that a number of people who had relationships with William have been questioned by police".
William's foster family have never been publicly named due to legal reasons.
Ten reporter Lia Harris, who interviewed the foster parents for her 2019 podcast 'Where's William Tyrrell' said she had recently received a subpoena from the coroner's court for "a very broad range of material".
"Everything that I had uncovered in my research for the podcast, audio files, documents, everything, including those raw tapes of my extensive interviews with the foster parents," she told 2GB on Tuesday
"To me, it signalled that they had either taken a new direction or they had a new theory they were working on."
The findings of a coronial inquest into William's disappearance, which concluded last year, are yet to be handed down.
A $1 million reward for information on the case still stands.
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South Australia will scale back quarantine requirements and no longer enforce statewide COVID-19 lockdowns from next week.
Premier Steven Marshall made the announcement on Monday in an update on how SA will live with the virus after its borders reopen on November 23.
"We will be very, very significantly reducing the test, trace, isolate and quarantine requirements," he said.
"In the past, we've had to take a pretty heavy-handed approach, quite frankly, because a single case could set off a cluster which would lock down our state.
"As of next Tuesday, we will no longer have the threat of a whole-of-state lockdown."
If someone gets COVID-19, they will still need to isolate for up to 14 days.
But under the changes, close or casual contacts of an infected person won't have to do 14 days unless they are unvaccinated.
The worst scenario for a vaccinated close or casual contact would be a maximum of seven days' quarantine.
This is because fully vaccinated casual contacts only need to isolate until they receive their first negative test result.
SA has also redefined who would be classified as a close or casual contact of an infected person.
A casual contact is now a person who had less than 15 minutes of face-to-face contact with an infectious person where there was a "reasonable risk" of transmission.
Risk is based on their vaccination status, use of masks, whether they were indoors or outdoors and the nature of exposure, such as singing.
SA Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said the testing, tracing, isolation and quarantine regime would continue to play a role in controlling outbreaks.
"Our contact tracing team are 'match-ready'," Professor Spurrier said in a statement.
"The team will continue to get in touch with all individuals who have come into contact with a case to inform them if they are a close or casual contact and what is expected of them."
Mr Marshall said the government had made 392 extra beds and treatment spaces available and was recruiting up to 1920 doctors, nurses, ambulance officers and other health staff.
"You will always be able to get the care you need, when you need it," he said.
As of 3pm on Sunday, 85.3 per cent of South Australians had had their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 73.9 per cent were fully vaccinated.
The state is still expected to hit 80 per cent double-jab coverage by November 23.
Meanwhile, SA Police are searching for a woman who absconded from hotel quarantine in Adelaide after arriving from Darwin using a stolen driver's licence.
The woman landed in the capital on Friday and was required to quarantine for a fortnight at a facility in the CBD.
But about 7.45pm on Saturday, she escaped via a fire escape and caught a taxi from a nearby rank.
Police are not sure where the woman is originally from and are treating the matter as a health issue rather than a law enforcement issue.
© AAP 2021
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