Shorten: only 5000 houses bought by foreigners in last two years

The NDIS is growing too fast and service providers need to stop telling participants to spend up their plans, says Disability minister Bill Shorten,

“The reality is, it is growing too fast,” Shorten tells ABC Radio National.

“Because I love this game, you’ve got to tell the truth is that 10 years ago, it didn’t exist.

“Now there’s $42 billion appropriately being invested in people disability, but the job of the scheme wasn’t to create NDIS millionaires with pop up businesses treating their participants as human ATMs,” Shorten says.

“A lot of good people are working hard every day. But there is a long tail and it’s the unfortunate fact that when there’s government money and government spending, if it’s not properly stewarded, some people try to have a lender the participants, but there are service providers, some of them are dodgy.”

“We’re seeing very positive outcomes, but it’s been money sprayed into a system where I don’t think there is enough accountability for outcomes and participants deserve better.”

Violence has raged across New Caledonia for the third consecutive day, hours after France imposed a state of emergency in the French Pacific territory, boosting security forces’ powers to quell unrest in the archipelago that has long sought independence.

French authorities in New Caledonia and the interior ministry in Paris said five people, including two police officers, were killed after protests earlier this week over voting reforms pushed by President Emmanuel Macron’s government turned deadly.

At least 60 members of the security forces were injured and 214 people were arrested over clashes with police, arson and looting Thursday, the territory’s top French official, High Commissioner Louis Le Franc, said.

“Everything is being done to restore order and calm that Caledonians deserve,” French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said after a meeting at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris.

He said that in addition to 1,700 security forces troops that have already been deployed to help police, 1,000 more are on the way but the situation “remains very tense, with looting, riots, arson and attacks, which are unbearable and unspeakable.”

Two members of the island’s Indigenous Kanak community were among the five dead, French Interior and Overseas Territories Minister Gerald Darmanin said Thursday as he vowed that France “will regain total control.”

He said 10 people, all allegedly from the pro-independence movement known as The Field Acton Coordination Unit, were under house arrest. In April, the group had backed several protests against French authorities on the island.

Still, Darmanin claimed the movement is a “small group which calls itself pro-independence, but instead commits looting, murder and violence.”

Leaders of a Kanak Workers Union in Paris appealed for calm and said they were deeply saddened by deaths in their faraway homeland.

“We wish to see the French government make a strong political statement rather than send troops,” a union leader Rock Haocas told reporters on Thursday. “Starting a conversation would be a strong political statement.

AP

EV sales will continue to rise says Energy minister Chris Bowen, after the government struck a deal with the Greens to push through new emission standards laws.

“There’s a myth around that electric car sales are plateauing around the world are falling around the world,” Energy minister Chris Bowen told ABC radio.

“It’s just not true. Australians know this is the direction of travel and car companies are making those decisions.”

“Many are phasing out internal combustion engines in over the next decade and a half or so.”

Asked if latest sales numbers suggesting sales were flattening Bowen said the long run trend was clear.

“You’re going to see a little bit of movement around month to month. The trend is up.”

The government has agreed to reforms to the petroleum rental resource tax and has shelved rules to fast track new offshore gas developments as part of an agreement with the Greens.

“Australia and Russia, the only two major economies in the world,” Bowen says.

“Without fuel efficiency standards have been dumping grounds for cars that companies cut in and other countries because of fuel efficiency standards,” Bowen says.

“We’re going to save a lot of emissions between now and 2035.”

With prosecutors’ hush money case against Donald Trump barreling toward its end, defence lawyers pressed former attorney Michael Cohen on his criminal history and past lies Thursday as they worked to convince jurors not to believe the star witness’ pivotal testimony.

As Trump looked on, defence attorney Todd Blanche peppered Cohen with questions about his own misdeeds, painting him to the jury as a serial fabulist who is bent on seeing the presumptive Republican presidential nominee behind bars.

Whether the defence is successful in undermining Cohen’s testimony could determine Trump’s fate in the case. Over several days on the witness stand, Cohen described for jurors meetings and conversations he said he had with Trump about the alleged scheme to stifle stories about sex that threatened to torpedo Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Trump’s attorneys are seizing on Cohen’s checkered past to try to sow doubt in jurors’ minds over his version of the story, underscoring the risk of prosecutors’ reliance on Cohen.

Cohen acknowledged lying to Congress about work he did on a Trump real estate deal in Russia. He also testified that he lied under oath when he pleaded guilty to federal charges, including tax fraud, in 2018.

The defence also attacked Cohen’s motivations, suggesting he turned on Trump after he was denied a White House job. Blanche confronted Cohen with a series of text messages showing private conversations he had in November 2016. In one message, Cohen texted his daughter that he still had a shot at becoming the president’s chief of staff. Another shows Cohen telling a friend that she could serve as his assistant once he gets the position.

“The truth is, Mr. Cohen, you really wanted to work in the White House, correct?” asked Blanche. “No sir,” Cohen replied.

Cohen is by far prosecutors’ most important witness, placing Trump directly at the centre of the alleged scheme to silence women who claimed to have had sexual encounters with Trump. Trump denies the women’s claims. Cohen told jurors that Trump promised to reimburse him for the money he fronted and was constantly updated about behind-the-scenes efforts to bury stories feared to be harmful to his 2016 campaign.

Trump, who insists the prosecution is an effort to damage his campaign to reclaim the White House, says the payments to Cohen were properly categorised as legal expenses because Cohen was a lawyer. The defence has suggested that he was trying to protect his family, not his campaign, by squelching what he says were false, scurrilous claims.

“The crime is that they’re doing this case,” he told reporters Thursday before entering the courtroom, flanked by a group of congressional allies that included Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., and Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., the chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus.

The former president has been joined at the courthouse in recent days by a slew of conservative supporters, including some considered potential vice presidential picks and others angling for future administration roles. House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared Tuesday.

Gaetz later posted a photo on social media of him standing behind Trump in court, with the words, “Standing back, and standing by, Mr. President.” That is a phrase that the Proud Boys, an extremist group whose leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, have used since Trump, during a 2020 campaign debate, said: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”

AP

Labor has allocated $4.1 billion for 64 new priority infrastructure projects, $2.7 billion of which has gone to Labor seats in Tuesday’s federal budget.

Two in three dollars allocated to new road and rail projects in Tuesday’s budget went to Labor held electorates, sparking hypocrisy claims from the Coalition.

Labor allocated $4.1 billion for 64 new priority infrastructure projects, $2.7 billion of which went to Labor seats, according to analysis of Infrastructure Department data by The Australian Financial Review.

The money for new projects was in addition to $10.1 billion over 10 years towards dozens of projects already being jointly funded with the states.

Read more:

Welcome to the Need to Know blog for Friday May 17.

Here are some of the latest stories:

Labor slammed for offshore gas approval backdown A deal with the Greens means Labor is close to passing Petroleum Resources Rent Tax changes and vehicle emissions standards, but it has shelved fast-tracked gas approvals.

AFP investigates large-scale ransomware attack on health company The Australian Federal Police and other authorities are investigating a large-scale ransomware attack on a private health business. Here’s how the day unfolded.

Dutton to slash migrant intake, ban foreign property buyers The opposition leader has vowed to slash permanent migration by a quarter and ban foreign investors buying established homes for two years.

Jobless jump could unwind next month, economists say Economists predict some of the lift in unemployment in April may unwind in May, amid broader signs the jobs market remains strong and is absorbing a surge in migrants.

Vladimir Putin’s preparing for a long war The Russian president’s idea of the motherland is much larger than the country’s globally recognised borders, an atavism that’s widely shared within his nation.

Xi tells Putin their nations’ ties should last ‘generations’ The Chinese president said his country was “ready to work with Russia as a good neighbour, friend and partner with mutual trust”.

Police contacted over threats to eSafety chief: court documents Australia’s e-safety watchdog went to police after commissioner Julie Inman Grant received threats and online abuse after telling X Corp to take down a video of a brutal church stabbing.