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Sydney records mystery COVID case, plus the other news stories you need to know today, June 16.

NSW records positive COVID case with an unknown source. 

A new locally transmitted COVID-19 case has been recorded in Sydney's Bondi area, with the source of their infection unknown.

NSW Health has issued a new COVID-19 alert, with a list of venues attended by the positive case. Most of the venues are in Bondi Junction and Vaucluse, with another in North Ryde. 

The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee will convene on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the case.

It comes as the NSW Health also investigates a potential hotel quarantine breach, after two cases in adjacent rooms returned identical viral sequencing results.

It's unclear how and where transmission occurred from a couple to another returned traveller who were all staying on the fourth floor of Sydney's Radisson Blu quarantine hotel.

Meanwhile, NSW Health says it administered a record 17,223 COVID-19 vaccines in the 24 hours to 8pm on Tuesday, including 6048 at the vaccination centre at Sydney Olympic Park.

The total number of COVID-19 vaccines administered in NSW is now 1,737,557.

Australia and UK finalise free trade deal.

Scott Morrison has hailed a free trade deal with the United Kingdom as the most comprehensive and ambitious in Australia's history.

The prime minister and his British counterpart Boris Johnson announced the deal on Tuesday after sealing an in-principle agreement over dinner overnight.

"I said we would wait for the right deal, and I think we've got the right deal between the UK and Australia," Mr Morrison told reporters outside 10 Downing Street.

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"Our economies are stronger by these agreements. This is the most comprehensive and ambitious agreement that Australia has concluded."

The deal will pave the way for more Australians to live and work in Britain and offer exporters more market options.

It will also scrap a requirement for British backpackers to work on Australian farms before extending their visas.

This could create issues for producers who need seasonal workers to pick crops and regional pubs and clubs who rely heavily on working holiday makers.

But the Nationals say they have secured an agreement to guard against labour shortages, which will be separate to the UK trade deal.

Mr Morrison said consumers in Australia will benefit from cheaper products as tariffs on cars, whisky and other UK exports would be eliminated immediately.

"The UK will liberalise Australian imports with 99 per cent of Australian goods, including Australian wine and short and medium grain milled rice, entering the UK duty free when the agreement enters into force."

But import tariffs on Australian beef and lamb will only be fully phased out over 15 years following the urgings of UK farmers concerned about being crushed by cheaper produce from Australia.

"We could have done better": swimming boss.

Swimming Australia's boss says the organisation "could have done better" in handling sexism complaints while admitting deep concern at the tarnishing of the sport.

SA chief executive officer Alex Baumann says the governing body's complaints process could have been better explained to swimmers. But refused to say if there were any current investigations, citing confidentiality within the complaints process.

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"We are not going to comment on any individual cases," he said.

"Ultimately we have a confidential process and we have to maintain the integrity of that."

But most swimmers were unaware there were confidential avenues to lodge complaints, which Baumann said was an oversight.

"What I think has happened is we haven't communicated effectively," Baumann said.

" ... I don't think people know what they have to do - and we admit that.

"That is what we're trying to address right now. Ultimately they don't have to necessarily come to Swimming Australia."

Australia's Olympic selection trials have been overshadowed by claims of sexism and abusive culture in elite swimming.

The furore was triggered by dual Olympic silver medallist Maddie Groves claiming on social media there were "misogynistic perverts in the sport", which prompted further separate allegations of fat-shaming and abuse of elite swimmers.

Vic COVID-19 rules call looms amid cluster.

Victorians will soon learn if restrictions are to be eased despite a growing COVID-19 cluster at a Melbourne CBD townhouse complex.

Melburnians are still living under onerous restrictions after emerging from lockdown last Thursday including a 25 kilometre travel limit and mask mandate.

In recent weeks, the Victorian government has made a habit of announcing whether regional Victoria and Melbourne would move to more relaxed rules on Wednesdays.

Acting Premier James Merlino flagged last week city rules would likely move closer into line with regional Victoria, where two adults are currently permitted for home visits each day.

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"That would mean the travel restriction, in terms of the 25km, that would go," he said at the time.

But Health Minister Martin Foley said the further potential easing of restrictions from just before midnight on Thursday remained a "day-by-day proposition".

It comes after two residents of the locked-down Kings Park Apartment Complex at Southbank tested positive on Tuesday.

The cases will be included in Wednesday's official COVID-19 figures, and brings the number of infected residents to six.

Authorities believe transmission between the two cases occurred in a common area of the complex, which is home to 200 residents. All residents have been asked to self isolate for 14 days.

NSW quarantine hotel COVID cases probed.

NSW Health is investigating the source of a COVID-19 case diagnosed in hotel quarantine which has an identical viral sequence to two cases staying in an adjacent room.

The department said on Tuesday night it was unclear how and where transmission occurred from a couple to another returned traveller who were all staying on the fourth floor of the Radisson Blu quarantine hotel.

Genomic sequencing has shown all three cases have identical viral sequences of the Alpha strain (B.1.1.7).

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The couple, who were asymptomatic, tested positive to COVID-19 on a routine Day 2 test on June 3, NSW Health said in a statement.

The other returned traveller returned a negative Day 2 test on June 3 before subsequently developing symptoms and testing positive for COVID-19 following a test on June 5.

The three cases were transferred from the Radisson Blu to the Special Health Accommodation, where they remain.

All three cases arrived into Sydney on the same flight from Doha on June 1 and stayed in adjacent rooms in the quarantine hotel.

NSW Health said there was no evidence of further transmission.

Tamil family allowed to reunite in Perth.

A Tamil family detained on Christmas Island for the past two years has been allowed to reunite after the youngest daughter was medically evacuated with her mother to Perth.

Read more: Let's not pretend the decision about the Biloela family is an act of "compassion".

A charter flight on Tuesday night brought father Nades Murugappan and his six-year-old daughter Kopika from the island to the WA capital to join wife Priya and ill four-year-old daughter Tharnicaa.

But the family is no closer to returning to their Queensland home in Biloela despite now being allowed to live in community detention in Perth, where Tharnicaa is being treated for pneumonia and sepsis at Perth Children's Hospital.

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Immigration Minister Alex Hawke is yet to make a decision on whether any of the family members can reapply to stay in Australia.

"Today's decision does not create a pathway to a visa," Mr Hawke said on Tuesday.

"I will consider at a future date whether to lift the statutory bar presently preventing members of the family from reapplying for temporary protection, for which they have been previously rejected."

Mr Hawke said "everyone has compassion towards the ... two beautiful little girls" but granting a permanent visa to the family would "absolutely" start a flood of people-smuggling boats.

Walcha woman found guilty of murdering partner.

After sedating and gassing her grazier partner to inherit his property, Natasha Beth Darcy screamed at paramedics to keep on performing CPR after they declared him to be dead.

Darcy kept up her theatrics, telling authorities and first responders repeated lies, maintaining Mathew Dunbar had killed himself.

But after more than two days deliberations, a NSW Supreme Court jury on Tuesday found the 46-year-old guilty of murdering the sheep farmer.

The 42-year-old was found dead in his bed on his Pandora property in the Northern Tablelands town of Walcha on August 2, 2017.

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The couple met on a dating website in 2014, but the Crown contended it didn't take long for Darcy to start pushing for Mr Dunbar to change his will so she would inherit his $3.5 million property.

It also didn't take long for her to start researching ways to kill him, via numerous Google searches on topics including redback spiders, fungi, suicide and "how to commit murder", prosecutor Brett Hatfield said.

She had form, as was revealed in agreed facts relating to her estranged husband, paramedic Colin Crossman.

In 2009, she hit him Mr Crossman on the head with a hammer as he slept and days later sedated him and burnt down their house as he slept.

Referring to a $700,000 life insurance policy on his life, Mr Hatfield said it showed Darcy had a "tendency to sedate and inflict serious harm on her domestic partners for financial gain".

She will face a sentence hearing on October 1.

'Australian Club' votes against allowing women to join.

Businessmen Geoff Cousins has quit the Australian Club and has urged others to do the same after members of the prestigious Sydney institution voted against allowing women to join.

The 183-year-old organisation boasts 700-odd members including former Prime Ministers John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull.

Cousins describing his horror to The Australian, at the "guffaws and giggling" in the room ahead of the ballot, which was rejected by 62 per cent of the room.

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Those who voted against it brought up the fact they'd have to "behave differently at dinner" and "change the decor."

Actress Lisa Banes dies after hit-and-run.

Gone Girl actress Lisa Banes has died 10 days after being injured in a hit-and-run accident in New York City.

The 65-year-old Banes, who was struck by a scooter or motorcycle while crossing a street on June 4, died on Monday at Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, a police department spokesman said.

Banes appeared in numerous television shows and movies, including Gone Girl in 2014 and Cocktail with Tom Cruise in 1988. 

On television, she had roles on Nashville, Madam Secretary, Masters of Sex and NCIS.

Her manager David Williams said Banes was hit as she was crossing Amsterdam Avenue on the way to visit the Juilliard School, her alma mater.

Police have made no arrests.

Around the world.

- A New York state judge has ruled that Harvey Weinstein can be extradited to California to face rape and sexual assault charges.

- The former BBC Director-General has apologised to the Royal Family for hurt caused by Martin Bashir's infamous 1995 interview with Princess Diana.

- US health officials have announced a one-year ban on bringing in dogs from more than 100 countries where rabies is still a problem. 

- With AAP.

Feature image: Dominic Lipinski - WPA Pool/Getty/Larry Busacca/Getty.

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