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The federal government has "put the crooks on notice" amid reports the Medicare system is being rorted by up up to $8 billion a year.
Ministers Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek were responding on Monday to a joint Nine and ABC investigation that found some practitioners are ripping off the system by charging for services never delivered.
Government Services and NDIS Minister Bill Shorten said while the "vast majority" of general practitioners did the right thing, payments integrity was a problem.
"It drives taxpayers to despair if they think that some people are opportunistically rorting the system," he told Nine's Today show on Monday.
"Crooks do leave footprints ... obviously we have got to make sure there is complete confidence in the system but we need to put the crooks on notice that 'you will get caught'."
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, a former health minister, told Seven's Sunrise program the report was shocking.
"We need to come down on these people like a ton of bricks because Australians feel protective of Medicare and they want to keep Medicare and they love the way our health system works, but it cannot work if you have people ripping it off," she said.
"For those people who are ripping it off, they need to face the full consequences of the law."
According to the ABC and Nine investigation, some doctors have been billing dead people and falsifying patient medical records to lift their incomes. Other were making mistakes on claims.
Medicare expert Margaret Faux estimates the waste and rorts cost the system up to $8 billion a year, according to the ABC.
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Major flood warnings remain in place for nearly a dozen rivers in NSW, as the swollen Murray River threatens to inundate communities on both sides of the Victorian border.
The Bureau of Meteorology says major flooding is expected at Echuca in Victoria and Moama, a town in the NSW Riverina district, with flooding there likely to be as bad as or worse than the 1993 flood - the area's second-biggest on record.
Around 200 residents at an Indigenous community near Moama have been told to evacuate by midday on Monday and people living in the Moama caravan were told to leave by 6am.
Despite clear skies on the weekend in NSW, the BoM's Dean Narramore says floodwaters are still rising.
"We have major flood warnings right across inland NSW and northern Victoria," he told ABC on Monday.
"Today, we're going to see a number of locations peak."
Thousands of residents in Forbes, in the NSW central west, are affected. Some were evacuated before the Lachlan River peaked on Friday night and part of the CBD are still inundated.
Major flooding at Warren is expected to continue and more rain could cause further rises on the Macquarie River, threatening more severe flooding at Wellington and Narromine in the coming days.
"We have major flooding continuing on many of the inland areas around Warren and Wee Waa and parts of the Darling and rainfall, (with) more rain coming in the coming days, which will only exacerbate the many ongoing flood issues at the moment," Mr Narramore said.
People in South West Narrandera were ordered to evacuate before 6pm on Sunday after the Murrumbidgee River's main flood peak passed through Wagga Wagga last week and headed downstream, with moderate flooding expected downstream at Darlington Point from Thursday.
The Murrumbidgee has passed the minor flood level at Balranald while major flooding is not expected to reach the town of Hay until late October, the BoM says.
Major flood warnings remain in place for 11 rivers in NSW and the SES have responded to 110 calls for help and conducted two flood rescues in the past 24 hours.
Another storm system is forecast to develop over central Australia on Tuesday, bringing widespread 25-50mm over much of inland NSW and thunderstorms to eastern states by mid-week.
"This is a lot less than what we saw, but with everything now so wet and saturated, this is going to lead to renewed river level rises on many of our already flooded rivers. Particularly as we get in towards that Thursday and Friday," Mr Narramore said.
October rainfall records have been set in parts of inland NSW, including at Broken Hill in the state's far west.
Sydney has also recorded its wettest year on record after only 10 months.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Sunday four more areas were eligible to apply for federal financial assistance.
The addition of the Central Coast, Coonamble, Goulburn-Mulwaree and Parkes bring the total number of NSW local government areas with assistance available to 31.
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The trial for the man accused of raping Brittany Higgins inside Parliament House is expected to finish this week after the prosecutor indicated he was well ahead of schedule.
Bruce Lehrmann is being tried in the ACT Supreme Court, charged with sexual intercourse without consent.
He has pleaded not guilty and denies having sex with Ms Higgins.
Originally expected to run for between four and six weeks, prosecutor Shane Drumgold told the court he would be in a position to close his case in half that time.
Closing arguments are expected to begin early this week after the list of witnesses was cut from nearly 60 to 32.
The court is expecting to hear evidence from coalition senators Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash for whom Ms Higgins worked as a ministerial staffer.
During the second week of the trial, more than 20 witnesses spoke before Ms Higgins returned to complete her cross-examination.
She had been unavailable earlier in the week.
On Friday, Lehrmann's defence lawyer Steven Whybrow questioned Ms Higgins about inconsistencies in her version of events during and after the night of her alleged rape.
Ms Higgins initially told police she visited a medical centre and had tests done after her alleged assault but the court later heard she did not follow through with her appointments.
"I had intention of going but I was so depressed I couldn't really get out of bed," she said.
"I wasn't perfect."
Mr Whybrow put to her that she did not see Lehrmann inside Senator Reynolds' office and she was not sexually assaulted by him.
"He was in there. He was physically violating me. He was in my body. I know," she said.
Before dismissing them for the weekend, ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum reminded the jury panel not to conduct their own research or discuss the case with anyone.
She flagged broad interest in the trial would result in many headlines which jurors should ignore, encouraging them to have a social media detox instead.
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The NSW government has lashed its federal counterpart after being "short-changed" in an infrastructure cash splash.
The federal Labor government is pledging $9.6 billion in the October budget for the construction of road and rail projects across the country.
"It's about making journeys quicker but also making sure people can get home to their families safely," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Sunday.
"Sound and planned infrastructure investment in Australia creates jobs, builds opportunity and unlocks economic growth and productivity for our cities and our regions."
But while Victoria is a big winner, with $2.2 billion to help fund the state's Suburban Rail Loop, NSW received only $1 billion in funding including $300 million for western Sydney roads and another $500 million for the High Speed Rail Authority.
The NSW coalition said federal Labor had "short-changed every single person in NSW".
"The NSW government is doing the heavy lifting when it comes to infrastructure in Australia, spending more than all other states and territories and a lot more than the federal government," NSW Infrastructure Minister Rob Stokes said.
"NSW Labor has an appalling record on infrastructure. Labor conference is on this weekend and Chris Minns' silence on this issue is deafening. If he was fair dinkum, he'd be fighting the federal government for our share."
Mr Stokes said NSW had received $122 per citizen, compared with $10,729 for each Northern Territorian.
Federal infrastructure Minister Catherine King admitted the discrepancy between NSW and other states was due to a contentious relationship with NSW's coalition government.
"We had a slightly different relationship in opposition with the Victorians as we did with NSW, so we didn't really have a lot of projects on the table from opposition with them," she told the ABC's Insiders on Sunday.
"But we'll talk to the NSW government in the lead-up to the May budget as to where their priorities are."
At least one of the those potential projects would be raising the Warragamba Dam, which will cost $1.6 billion.
Ms King said that would be discussed before next year's budget.
Freight highways in the heart of South Australia will get a $1.5 billion upgrade and maintenance package.
Brisbane and Tasmanian roads will see between $500 million to $600 million each to upgrade road corridors, while Perth will get $125 million in funding for an electric bus network.
It also means the end of cash for so-called "zombie projects" that had been sitting flagged but never realised in budgets under the previous coalition government, including the East West link in Victoria and the Perth Freight Link.
The Northern Territory will receive a $2.5 billion boost, including $332 million towards the NT Strategic Roads Package.
The $9.6 billion pledge follows a promise unveiled on Saturday by Mr Albanese to add another six weeks to the government-funded parental leave package by 2026.
It would mean Australians could access six months of parental leave, which the prime minister hoped would inspire the private sector to set the new limit as a "baseline".
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