Australia news live: Jonathon Duniam to retire from politics; father and daughter found dead in Sydney river

Further to the previous post, Jonno Duniam said he had discussed his plans with Taylor in recent weeks.

double quotation markRepresenting Tasmania, the best state in the Commonwealth, has been a blessing and the honour of a lifetime – one that will be hard to match. While I know there will be some who will be disappointed that I am leaving, I am very grateful to the Liberal Party membership in Tasmania for granting me the privilege of being a Senator and for all the support that they have provided to me.

Now is the right time for my party to choose new Senate team members who will carry forward the fight for Tasmania and for the values in which the Liberal Party believes.

I leave Federal politics proud and grateful but exhausted. I wish our current Senators, and our new Senate team as a whole, nothing but the best as they strive hard to deliver for our state.

Liberal frontbencher Jonathan Duniam says he will quit politics before the next election.

The announcement on Sunday is a blow for the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, as the Coalition faces persistently poor polling and a challenge from One Nation.

The shadow home affairs minister says he will quit the Senate at the end of the year, saying in a statement:

double quotation markThis was an extremely difficult decision to make – albeit that it is one I have been considering for quite some time.

I have spent the past 25 years in politics, the last 10 of those as a Senator for Tasmania – and I have given everything to these responsibilities, often at the expense of family.

Twenty-five years is a long time in any vocation and, when you take your role seriously, it always comes first. It is time I reversed my priorities and I can’t do that if I am to stay in politics.

Obviously, I acknowledge that I am leaving at a difficult time for the Federal Coalition.

But I am confident that my friends across both the Liberal Party and the National Party are firmly on the right path.

No two people in the Coalition are more equipped to lead us (and Australia) back to success than Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan; they are both outstanding leaders and have a love for our country that is unrivalled.

The body of a seven-year-old girl has been recovered from Sydney’s Parramatta River after her father was also found dead earlier on Saturday, with an investigation into their deaths to continue.

Emergency services were called to Bayview Park in Concord just before 11:45am on Saturday after a passerby on another vessel spotted a man’s body in the water near a small, drifting boat. Officers from the Burwood Police Area Command boarded another boat to reach the scene, where they pulled the man from the water and commenced CPR. He could not be revived.