Jennifer Feller
There's a fear that follows Sue-Yen Luiten as she cycles through the Mekong Delta with hundreds of DNA kits in tow. What if her birth parents have been looking for her and it's too late? Mon 26 May Mon 26 May Mon 26 May 2025 at 6:07am
Polarising politician Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is rising up the political ranks after helping defeat the Voice referendum. The former singer and TV host reveals the private pain that shaped her views and why she's unapologetic. Tue 11 Feb Tue 11 Feb Tue 11 Feb 2025 at 1:23am
Controversial senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price could become the next Minister for Indigenous Australians. She says tragedy and trauma shaped her views. Sat 8 Feb Sat 8 Feb Sat 8 Feb 2025 at 11:30pm
A mysterious email. Shocking revelations. And the ultimate betrayal. How teacher Hannah Grundy was forced to become her own detective to unmask a sick cyber criminal whose identity she couldn't believe. Mon 14 Oct Mon 14 Oct Mon 14 Oct 2024 at 9:35am
Anna Coutts-Trotter was a teenager doing well at school, living at home with supportive parents Tanya Plibersek and Michael Coutts-Trotter. But she was being abused by her then-boyfriend. Sun 21 Apr Sun 21 Apr Sun 21 Apr 2024 at 7:03pm
Anjali Sharma, 19, is taking her fight for a cleaner future direct to the lawmakers in federal parliament. Mon 11 Mar Mon 11 Mar Mon 11 Mar 2024 at 9:19am
What were you doing at 19? Anjali Sharma is trying to change the law. Meet the teenager taking the fight for her generation's future from the streets to the halls of parliament. Mon 11 Mar Mon 11 Mar Mon 11 Mar 2024 at 12:25am
Libbi Gorr talks about the notorious 'Chopper' interview, the identity crisis that followed and why, at the age of 58, she's embarking on a new adventure. Mon 6 Nov Mon 6 Nov Mon 6 Nov 2023 at 9:15am
Libbi Gorr shook up Australian television in the 1990s with her comic character Elle McFeast. A controversial interview saw her TV career tumble. This is how she found her way back. Sun 5 Nov Sun 5 Nov Sun 5 Nov 2023 at 7:01pm
From fashionista to farmer ... how seaweed science drove Sam Elsom's career change. Mon 2 Oct Mon 2 Oct Mon 2 Oct 2023 at 9:05am
Seaweed, cows and cutting-edge science: This is how Sam Elsom swapped fashion for farming to spearhead a revolutionary climate change solution. But he's facing a major obstacle. Tue 3 Oct Tue 3 Oct Tue 3 Oct 2023 at 12:03am
Continuing the story of the remarkable life of Valerie Taylor, the celebrated underwater filmmaker and shark conservationist. Mon 20 Mar Mon 20 Mar Mon 20 Mar 2023 at 11:03am
Shark legend Valerie Taylor and her latest fight to save our most feared predator. Mon 13 Mar Mon 13 Mar Mon 13 Mar 2023 at 9:35am
Remembering singing legend Judith Durham and the trailblazing band who put Australian music on the map. Mon 24 Oct Mon 24 Oct Mon 24 Oct 2022 at 9:28am
Lyn Dawson was missing for 40 years but her brother and sister never gave up hope. ABC's Australian Story goes behind the scenes as her siblings prepared for the outcome of her husband Chris Dawson's murder trial and digest the guilty verdict. Mon 5 Sep Mon 5 Sep Mon 5 Sep 2022 at 10:19am
The murder verdict that gripped the nation, Australian Story goes behind the scenes with Lyn Dawson's family
Thu 29 Sep Thu 29 Sep Thu 29 Sep 2022 at 7:45am
A devoted aunt investigates the mysterious death of her niece Amy Wensley, throwing doubt on the police case and exposing devastating investigative failures. Tue 5 Jul Tue 5 Jul Tue 5 Jul 2022 at 12:15am
Concluding the story about the mysterious death of Amy Wensley. As her family fights for justice, they discover a flawed police investigation and devastating forensic oversights. Fri 22 Jul Fri 22 Jul Fri 22 Jul 2022 at 1:33am
A devoted aunt investigates the mysterious death of her niece Amy Wensley, throwing doubt on the police case and exposing devastating investigative failures. Fri 22 Jul Fri 22 Jul Fri 22 Jul 2022 at 1:32am
Bank robber Russell Manser was destined for a life in prison before he discovered a new path by confronting his hidden trauma. Now he's working to help others seek justice for crimes long buried. Sun 29 May Sun 29 May Sun 29 May 2022 at 9:18pm
A notorious bank robber destined for a life in prison discovers a new path when he confronts his hidden trauma. Now he's assisting others to seek justice for crimes long buried, but it's been a rocky road to redemption. Fri 22 Jul Fri 22 Jul Fri 22 Jul 2022 at 12:15am
This is how an Australian family challenged a US policing system and its use of brutal force. But for Justine's Ruszczyk's family there is more to be done to ensure their daughter's "obscene" death was not in vain. Sun 7 Nov Sun 7 Nov Sun 7 Nov 2021 at 6:46pm
A Sydney family takes on the Minneapolis police department in a long-running court battle to hold officer Mohamed Noor accountable for the death of Justine Ruszczyk. Fri 12 Nov Fri 12 Nov Fri 12 Nov 2021 at 9:22am
When former international tennis player Louise Pleming met Brian Turton at a soup kitchen for the homeless, an extraordinary friendship developed and incredible events followed.
Mon 14 Jun Mon 14 Jun Mon 14 Jun 2021 at 2:16pm
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ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
How easy is it to trick the Australian Taxation Office?
Sam Hawley: How easy is it to trick the Australian Tax Office? Well, for fraudsters it's not hard at all and plenty have done it costing taxpayers billions of dollars that have never been recovered. Today, Angus Grigg on his Four Corners investigation into the biggest GST scam in history and how the ATO dropped the ball. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Sam Hawley: Angus, you've been hard at work looking into what's going on at the Australian Tax Office. And you've really been having a deep look into this huge GST scam. Now, this unfolded in no other than Mildura in north-west Victoria. So, take me there and tell me about local resident Sarah. Angus Grigg: Yeah. Mildura is a really beautiful town, an irrigation town on the Murray in North West Victoria. And this GST scam really took off in Mildura. And it really was circulating within a sort of population that you might say is low socioeconomic groups, people on welfare, people with addiction issues. And we went to interview one person called Sarah. She was going through quite a bit of financial hardship at the time. I think she'd separated from her partner who was facing pretty serious charges at the time as well. And she was short of money because she needed to have some dental work done. So one of her friends showed her how to use a business that had been registered and an ABN linked to GST to claim GST refunds fraudulently. 'Sarah': The people that I was associating with at that time, they had done it and told me how easy it was to get a large amount of money quickly. And I just thought at the time it was a good idea because I was in a bit of financial trouble. Angus Grigg: She pretended, if you like, to be a hairdresser, despite the fact that she had no hairdressing qualifications. She'd never worked in a hairdresser, hadn't hired premises, had no equipment. And so she logged into her myGov account and first of all, claimed $15,000 and then did it a second time and got another $15,000. 'Sarah': I don't even really still understand how it went through. I was a single parent and then all of a sudden I'm a hairdresser that's getting this return put into my account with no other payments from clients or anything like that to balance it was needed. Like no proof. Angus Grigg: Now, bear in mind, the money went into the same account as her welfare payments and the money went within about 10 days without any verification, without any checks, without anyone from the tax office ringing and saying, what did you spend this money on? Do you have hairdressing qualifications? Have you hired premises? You know, she just absolutely couldn't believe how easy it was. 'Sarah': Yeah, I just couldn't believe it that it was just sitting there on my everyday access debit bank card. Angus Grigg: Now, the other thing to bear in mind, to receive a GST refund of $30,000, she would have needed to have capital expenditure or bought stock and other items for her hairdressing business of about $300,000. Now, surely a single mother living on welfare, getting family tax benefits, that should have been a red flag for the tax office. Sam Hawley: Wow. Okay. So Sarah, which is not her real name, just by the way, you've changed that for this story to keep her anonymous. She just tells the ATO she's a hairdresser and then the tax office falls for it. That's extraordinary. Angus Grigg: It is. And the fact that you don't need a receipt, you don't need any proof of the line of work you're in is extraordinary. And that's because the tax office basically fired most of the humans in the loop and started relying on algorithms or computers, if you like, to make these payments. They wanted to ensure the timely payment of GST refunds to businesses. But in doing that, they really opened the door up to fraud. Sam Hawley: Right. Sure. So the tax office wants to streamline things. But in the meantime, people like Sarah are all of a sudden dabbling in fraud. And as we've mentioned, she's not the only one. There's a lot of other people doing a very similar thing. Tell me about Linden Phillips. What was he up to? Angus Grigg: Linden Phillips, once again from Mildura, for us, he was like patient zero. It looks like he was the really one of the very, very early people in this scam. So what happens is that Linden Phillips gets out of jail in August 2021. And he already has a company registered. And so he reactivates his GST registration through his ABN and his MyGov account. And then within a couple of weeks of getting out of jail, he does what I'd sort of call a test run. And he claims $13,000 in GST refunds from the tax office. Once again, no documents, no receipts, no verification required. He gets that money within a couple of weeks and clearly then thinks, OK, I'm going to go for the big one. And so what he does is he lodges 46 backdated GST claims for an amount of $821,000 in GST. And the real kicker here is that for most of the period those GST claims are lodged, he's actually in jail. Sam Hawley: Oh my gosh. Angus Grigg: I know. He just couldn't make it up. Sam Hawley: What does he do with all that money? Angus Grigg: Well, of course, he spends it, right? Within a couple of weeks, the money's completely gone. He buys himself a second-hand Porsche. Somewhat endearingly, he buys his mother a house. But the really damning thing here is that the tax office notice it. Finally, someone, there's a human in the loop and they pick up the fact that, hey, maybe something's a bit wrong here. And so they ring him up and he says, oh yeah, no, it's all legitimate. I'll get my accountant to call you. The accountant never calls. They send him some emails. They write him some letters. He ignores them all. And the really damning thing here is the tax office does nothing for four months. And in that four month period, this scam absolutely explodes. So what we did is we went back and we deconstructed, if you like, the tax office's narrative. And the narrative was that this fraud took off on social media. The tax office noticed it. They cracked down really hard, really quickly, and they brought it under control. Now we sort about testing that idea. Sam Hawley: So the ATO says it did this great job. It cracked down on this fraud. But what actually happened? Because you actually had a look at that and discovered, in fact, the ATO didn't do much at all. Angus Grigg: No, exactly. So Linden Phillips does finally get caught, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the ATO. It all comes down to the smarts of a local detective in Mildura named Vanessa Power. Now, she is attending Phillips's house on a drugs and gun charge, and she searches his premises, his house, and she confiscates a phone. And using the sort of smarts that the ATO should be employing, she sees that on his phone there appears to be a pretty elaborate GST scam. And in fact, it looks as though that Linden Phillips had helped 60 other people perpetrate this scam. Linden Phillips is arrested. And then a few weeks later, the ATO finally launch what they call Operation Protego, which is to crack down on this GST scam. Sam Hawley: Wow. Okay. And at that point, of course, Sarah, who we spoke about earlier, she was also arrested back in December 2022. But the thing is, the money, it's sort of gone, right? 'Sarah': I can't pay it back. It's not even an option at the moment. Or it probably never will be. Sam Hawley: Is there any way the tax office can actually get these funds back? Angus Grigg: Well, this is the point, right? In the end, $2 billion was stolen from the tax system by 56,000 people. Now, the ATO tell us that of those 56,000 people who perpetrated this scam, just 120, I think it might be 122 now, have been convicted. Secondly, of the $2 billion stolen, the ATO tells us that only 160 million, or around 8% of that, has been recovered. Sam Hawley: And, Angus, that money, it really is just a drop in the ocean, right? Because you've also looked at all the other funds that the ATO hasn't managed to collect, and you've spoken to Karen Payne. Now, she's a former Inspector General of Taxation. She basically says if the ATO had collected what it was owed, then we would all be paying less tax. Angus Grigg: Yeah. Karen Payne, she really focused on what's called collectible debt. And that is this sort of giant number that the ATO doesn't like to talk about. And when she started looking at it, it was about $30 billion. Then it rose to about $50 billion. The figure is now $53 billion. And that is the amount of money or taxes that the ATO has levied, if you like, but not collected. Karen Payne, Inspector General of Taxation, 2019-24: The large percentage of the debts that were due were in fact owned by a very small number of taxpayers or they're related to a small number of taxpayer accounts. So you'd kind of think it's a small number of people you need to be chasing. Angus Grigg: And the point that Karen Payne was making is that if we collected all that tax, perhaps we would not have to pay as much tax, all of us, but also we'd have more money to spend on really basic things like schools, roads and hospitals. Karen Payne, Inspector General of Taxation, 2019-24: The fact that it keeps rising is troubling. So it's fundamental, I think, that we've got good administration of the tax system because the integrity of the tax system is fundamentally important to all of us. It pays for all of the services that we benefit from. Sam Hawley: Angus, despite everything that you have said, which is frankly really concerning, the ATO itself thinks it's doing a pretty good job, right? Because Chris Jordan, who was the tax commissioner up until 2024, he's been putting a rather positive spin on the ATO's work. Angus Grigg: Yeah. This is the really extraordinary thing. Despite all these scandals, the ATO tells us they are doing a great job. Just before Chris Jordan stepped down as tax commissioner, he did a victory lap, if you like, at the National Press Club, and he pointed out all the great, terrific things that the ATO has done. Chris Jordan, Tax Commissioner, 2013-24: We've successfully charted a massive program of transformation. We've cut red tape and we've modernised our administration of the tax system as part of the digital revolution to make tax just happen.
The Australian
4 hours ago
- The Australian
A ‘wanted' Aussie man has been shot by police in Townsville
An allegedly 'wanted' Aussie man has been shot by police in Townsville. Police received reports a man in his 20s was walking along Carthew St in Thuringowa Central about 3.16pm on Sunday afternoon. A Queensland Police spokesperson alleged the man was 'wanted' in a statement. An allegedly 'wanted' Aussie man has been shot by police in Townsville. Picture: Google Maps. Police arrived at the scene shortly afterwards, where an officer discharged a firearm. The man was given medical assistance immediately after. He was taken to Townsville University Hospital by paramedics, where he is receiving treatment. A Queensland Police spokesperson confirmed there was no ongoing threat to the public. Anyone with information, including dashcam footage, has been urged to come forward. The Ethical Standards Command is investigating the incident, with oversight from the Crime and Corruption Commission. Clareese Packer Reporter Clareese is a Court Reporter at NewsWire. She previously covered breaking news for the outlet after completing the 2023 NewsCorp cadet program, where she worked at The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, the National News Network and NewsWire. Clareese Packer
News.com.au
5 hours ago
- News.com.au
Labor to introduce Bill to cap PBS-listed scripts at $25, PM dodges questions on super tax
Labor will begin its first steps to legislate its election promise to cap the cost of scripts listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to $25 from January 1 of next year. Once passed, eligible medicines will be lowered from $31.60 to $25. The government estimates the change will save Australians $200m a year, while costing the budget $690m over four years. This is in addition to previous reforms which allowed patients to acquire 60-day prescriptions, and freezing the cost of medicine for pension and concession card holders at $7.70 until the end of 2029. The election pledge was also matched by the Coalition, suggesting the Bill will likely have a swift passage through parliament. Anthony Albanese said it was a promise delivered. 'This is another example of cost of living relief that helps every Australian,' Mr Albanese said. 'The size of your bank balance shouldn't determine the quality of your healthcare. My government will continue to deliver cost of living relief for all Australians.' Health Minister Mark Bulter also welcomed the incoming Bill. 'Cheaper medicines are good for the hip pocket and good for your health,' Mr Butler said. 'For general patients medicines haven't been this cheap since 2004. 'For pension and concession card holders we've frozen your medicine prices at a maximum price of $7.70 until the end of the decade.' The Bill comes as the United States lashed Australia's PBS as 'discriminatory' amid tariff negotiations to remove the general 10 per cent levy, as well as fees on Australian steel and aluminium US imports. Concerningly, US President Donald Trump has also flagged a 200 per cent tariff on pharmaceutical imports, which could have a major impact on $2bn of Australian exports. However the Albanese government said it is unwilling to use the PBS as a bargaining chip. On Sunday, Mr Albanese also faced a grilling over when Labor would introduce its proposed plan to double the tax on superannuation accounts over $3m up to 30 per cent. He said the Bill 'will come in time' and that the priority in the first fortnight was policies 'that make a difference to people's money in their pocket'. Perth MP and assistant minister to the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman said the government had been 'clear about our priorities' for the Bill and said he was 'confident it will pass'. 'I think we have seen in this building, time and time again, that when it comes to getting things through parliament, you have got to also let the parliamentary processes do their piece,' he said.
