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Australian authorities are preparing to repatriate four citizens and one permanent resident from a hantavirus-afflicted cruise ship headed for the Spanish-controlled Canary Islands.

The Dutch-flagged vessel at the centre of the outbreak is set to dock on the island of Tenerife, off the coast of West Africa, about midday tomorrow local time (9pm AEST).

Once arrived, passengers will be taken to a "completely isolated, cordoned-off area", said the head of Spain's emergency services, Virginia Barcones.

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Passengers cannot stay on the island or take commercial flights home, meaning nations are expected to help their citizens get home.

The Australian Centre for Disease Control is working closely with states and territories to advise on quarantine requirements, health monitoring and testing arrangements.

None of the Australian passengers have displayed any symptoms of the virus,  a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) spokesperson said.

"DFAT consular officials are travelling to Tenerife to provide consular assistance to them and coordinate response efforts with local authorities and partner countries," the DFAT spokesperson said.

"We are considering options for the safe repatriation of the four Australians and permanent resident.

"Our priority is the safety of the community."

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Health officials in the Canary Islands will be tasked with carefully evacuating more than 140 passengers and crew members aboard a cruise ship

Both the US and the UK have agreed to send planes to evacuate their citizens from the cruise ship.

While three people have died since the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship are known to be infected with hantavirus, cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions said Thursday there were no people with symptoms of a possible infection on board the Dutch-flagged ship, the MV Hondius.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) considers the risk to the wider public from the outbreak as low.

Yesterday, the WHO said a flight attendant on a plane briefly boarded by an infected cruise passenger has tested negative for hantavirus.

Her possible infection had raised concerns about the virus's potential transmissibility.

The flight attendant's negative result should ease concerns among the public, said Christian Lindmeier, a WHO spokesman. "The risk remains absolutely low," he said.

"This is not a new COVID."

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Hantavirus is usually spread by the inhalation of contaminated rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people.

But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Health authorities across four continents were continuing to track down and monitor more than two dozen passengers who disembarked the ship before the deadly outbreak was detected.

They were also scrambling to trace others who may have come into contact with them since then.

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Countries scramble to track passengers who disembarked

On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, Dutch officials and the ship's operator said.

It wasn't until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a ship passenger, the WHO said.

The KLM flight attendant who tested negative for the virus was working on a flight headed from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25 and had later fallen ill.

She was taken to an isolation ward at an Amsterdam hospital on Thursday.

The cruise passenger, briefly aboard that flight, a Dutch woman whose husband died on the ship, was too ill to stay on the international flight to Europe and was taken off the plane in Johannesburg, where she died.

The Dutch public health service is currently undertaking contact tracing on passengers from the flight who had contact with the ill woman before she left the plane.

On Friday, UK health authorities said a third British national who had been a passenger on the ship is suspected of being infected with hantavirus.

The UK Health Security Agency said the person is on the island of Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory in the south Atlantic, where the ship stopped in April.

There was no word on the condition of the person.

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Spanish health officials said Friday a woman in the southeastern Spanish province of Alicante has symptoms consistent with a hantavirus infection and is being tested.

She was a passenger on the same flight as the Dutch woman who died in Johannesburg after travelling on the cruise ship and contracting the virus, Secretary of State for Health Javier Padilla told reporters.

Two other Britons who were on the ship have been confirmed to have the virus. One is hospitalised in the Netherlands and the other in South Africa.

Authorities in South Africa are working to trace contacts of any passengers who previously got off the ship.

They have focused mainly on an April 25 flight from the remote island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic to Johannesburg, the day after some passengers disembarked.

Spanish authorities detail disembarkation plans

Officials sought to reassure the public in the Canary Islands about possible exposure to the virus among the general population.

Spanish officials said that once the ship reaches Tenerife, passengers will be evacuated in small boats to buses only after their repatriation flights are ready to take them.

Passengers will be transported in isolated and guarded vehicles, officials said, adding that the parts of the airport they travel through will be cordoned off.

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Spain has requested medically equipped aircraft in case passengers report symptoms, Barcones said, in order to avoid any contact with the general population, but it wasn't known if those would be available.

The US agreed to send a plane to repatriate the 17 Americans on board the cruise ship.

Those passengers will be quarantined at the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Centre and Nebraska Medicine, the hospital said in a statement.

The dedicated biocontainment and quarantine unit in Omaha was previously used to treat Ebola patients and some of the first COVID-19 patients.

Nebraska Medicine is one of a handful of hospitals in the US with specialised treatment units for people with highly dangerous infectious diseases.

"We are prepared for situations exactly like this," Dr Michael Ash, Chief Executive of Nebraska Medicine, said in a statement.

The British government also said it will charter a plane to evacuate the nearly two dozen British nationals on board.

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Tens of thousands of voters in south-western NSW have cast their ballots in the eagerly-anticipated Farrer byelection, where One Nation is vying to continue its conservative crusade and upend a historic Liberal heartland.

The final votes have been cast in the contest for former opposition leader Sussan Ley's seat, which is being widely watched as a temperature check of voter dissatisfaction with the major parties.

If successful, it would be the first time a One Nation candidate has been directly elected to the House of Representatives.

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Opposition Leader Angus Taylor exchanged casual smiles and cool handshakes with locals outside key voting booths this morning, despite pressures to retain his predecessor's seat, which Ley held for 25 years.

"[It's an] important day for Farrer. We're humbly asking the people of Farrer to vote for Raissa," Taylor said.

Raissa Butkowski, the Liberal candidate, stifled suggestions the party's success in the region had fallen to voter dissatisfaction.

"The Liberal Party is not only the hope of Farrer but for the rest of the country," she said.

The seat has only ever been held by the Liberals or Nationals since its inception, and Labor is not running a candidate in the byelection.

But Butkowski faces an uphill battle, with One Nation vying to shake up the conservative status quo.

READ MORE: Australia prepares to repatriate citizens as hantavirus-hit cruise ship heads for the Canary Islands

"You know the nation is looking for change and Farrer is screaming out for change," One Nation candidate David Farley said.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has had the seat in her sights as the first pawn in a national takeover of major party politics, following a rise in support in recent months.

"[I'm voting for] Farley for sure. Just sick of the garbage of the major parties," one votert said.

"I've voted mostly the Libs all my life, but, they are not connected at the moment," another voter told 9News.

But others felt the conservative party didn't represent the people of Farrer.

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"I'm really sad at the idea that a community that has such a strong sort of migrant, multicultural background could possibly vote in One Nation," one woman said.

"That makes me really sad."

Independent candidate Michelle Milthorpe is shaping up as the closest contender for One Nation, having finished second to Ley at last year's federal election.

She too is pushing back against the major parties.

"I think they've lost that connection and the understanding of what it's like, you know, what a tank of fuel really costs," Milthorpe said.

"I think the clear message is that the two major parties, it's not business as usual anymore," independent MP for Indi Helen Haines said.

Farrer, which takes in the border town of Albury, has had just four representatives since its inception in 1949 – three Liberals and a National.

Today's byelection could spell disaster for Taylor.

"The Liberal Party made a decision on a new leader and that's had ramifications … we just get on with the job," Nationals leader Matt Canavan said.

"We're going to keep fighting for the things we believe in and that we know are the right things for this wonderful part of Australia," Taylor said.

Results from the vote count are expected to begin rolling in after 6pm, with candidates hoping to claim victory later tonight.

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A suburb in Sydney's west was thrown into lockdown overnight for several hours as police searched for a gunman.

The search started from a simple traffic infringement and the fugitive remained on the run this afternoon.

The shooter, wearing high-vis, was last spotted in Guildford.

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"A vehicle with irregular number plates committed a right-hand turn against traffic signs," Chief Inspector Rick Agius said.

The vehicle was a ute initially seen in South Wentworthville, before taking authorities on a 9-kilometre chase and eventually being pinned by police.

But the driver made a run for it, firing five shots into the air.

"The male in my opinion is totally irresponsible and stupid in his actions by discharging a firearm in a public place," Agius said.

"We're very lucky that no one was injured or killed."

Anyone with information can contact Crime Stopper

After a six hour manhunt and a search of the vehicle, authorities are no closer to figuring out who this man is and are hoping a member of the public can identify him.

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Emergency services were called to a rural farming property about 1.40pm Saturday.

The Herald went behind the scenes with Sky Sport at Super Round.

Age Concern Auckland says referrals for elder abuse rose 20-30% in a year.

You have probably heard about negative gearing quite a bit recently, and that's because the popular tax policy will likely be reformed for the first time in almost 40 years in next week's federal budget.

The all-but-confirmed changes have sparked quite a debate and divided opinions across the political spectrum and the private sector.

Here is why it's important (in simple terms, of course).

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Negative gearing is when an investor has expenses associated with a property, like interest on mortgage repayments, that are greater than the profit it makes.

Investors are then able to deduct many of those expenses from their taxable income, meaning they pay less during tax time. 

Negative gearing became more popular when the Howard government introduced the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount in 1999.

Coupled together, the generous concessions made it more attractive for investors to hold a property in the hopes that it increases value in the long-term and leads to a greater profit when they sell.

The findings from the Greens-led Senate inquiry in March outlined what some critics have been saying about negative gearing and the similarly popular capital gains tax discount: the policies are flawed and benefit investors over first-home buyers.

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Supporters of the policies, like the Housing Industry Association, believe any changes to the two property tax benefits could worsen the rental crisis by discouraging investment in housing.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is poised to reform negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount when he delivers his federal budget on May 12.

He has not officially confirmed the policies will be included, but has not ruled them out either. 

While we don't know for sure how negative gearing will be changed, there have been reports it may be wound back entirely, only applied to investors with more than one property, or phased out with exemptions for new properties.

The government is hoping to use changes in the budget to address intergenerational inequity. 

The anticipated reforms are a big deal, particularly since negative gearing has remained largely untouched since the Hawke/Keating governments temporarily limited it and then reversed the decision in 1987.

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese may also break a key promise by introducing changes after repeatedly telling reporters during last year's election campaign that he would not make any changes to negative gearing.

In one instance, he responded to a question about ruling out any changes with: "Yes. How hard is it? For the 50th time".

His government is, however, making the argument that changes are needed to address housing affordability and help young people enter the market.

"There are genuine intergenerational concerns and pressures in our budget, in our tax system, in our housing market and in our economy more broadly," Chalmers said on Monday. 

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The pair worked with a particular loader operator, and they both raised concerns.

The cul-de-sac has become a popular area for abandoned cars and bags full of rubbish.