Police also got reports of people tampering wth equipment in the red zone in April.

More than 150,000 Australians have signed up for the new MyMedicare program, part of the federal government's plan to boost the public health system.

The voluntary program gives both patients and providers a range of benefits, including longer telehealth consultations and greater bulk billing incentives.

This is what you need to know about MyMedicare, including how you can sign up for it.

READ MORE: 'Essential' bulk billing relief for millions of Aussies

What is MyMedicare?

MyMedicare is a new, voluntary registration that allows Australians to formally nominate their regular GP.

In exchange, both the patient and GP get access to select benefits.

The program is free and voluntary to sign up for, and changing preferred GPs or even withdrawing from the system can be done at any time.

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What are the benefits?

Patients who sign up for MyMedicare will get access to longer telehealth appointments funded by Medicare.

People in aged care homes will also be provided with more GP visits, while, from midway through next year, people who visit hospital frequently will get "connections to more appropriate care in general practice".

Practices will also benefit.

They'll get more information about patients who nominate them as their preferred practitioner, which the health department says will make it "easier to tailor services to fit the patient's needs".

They will also be given triple bulk billing incentives for longer telehealth appointments for children, pensioners and concession card holders.

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Who's eligible and how can I sign up?

Eligibility for MyMedicare is fairly broad – anyone with a Medicare or veteran card can sign up, as can anyone going through hardship like domestic violence or homelessness.

If you've had two appointments at one practice in the past 24 months – or one visit if the practice is in a remote area – you're also eligible.

Parents or guardians can register their children if one of them is eligible, and kids older than 14 can sign up themselves.

Patients can sign up online via their Medicare account or app, or they can ask their GP to begin the process.

Or, if paper registration is more your thing, you can fill out a physical registration form and return it to your GP.

Regardless of which method you choose, you won't be able to nominate your preferred practice until it has signed up for the program.

READ MORE: Price of pill used to treat 'tricky' heart disorder to be slashed

Why is the government introducing it?

The Department of Health says the new program will lead to better healthcare for Australians who sign up.

"Evidence shows that seeing the same GP and healthcare team regularly leads to better health outcomes," it says.

"Seeing your GP regularly and formalising the relationship you have with your GP and general practice through MyMedicare may lead to better health outcomes."

The program is part of a wider boost for Medicare in this year's federal budget, including $3.5 billion in incentivising bulk billing – which came into effect on November 1 – and double-length prescriptions for 300 medicines on the PBS.

"We're delivering the biggest investment in Medicare in over 40 years, with more incentives for bulk billing and 58 new urgent care clinics across Australia," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

"These changes to the Medicare bulk billing incentive will make it easier, and cheaper for more than 11 million Australians to visit a doctor."

Adrian Humphreys was stabbed five times while staying at a remote Taranaki campground.

Four people have been taken to hospital after they were mauled by a dog north of Brisbane.

Emergency crews were called to a property after receiving reports of a dog attack in Morayfield about 11.30am.

Queensland Ambulance Service confirmed one man in his 30s was treated by paramedics after receiving a "significant open wound" to his forearm.

READ MORE: Mushroom cook Erin Patterson arrested in Victoria over fatal meal

He was rushed to the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital in a stable condition.

A woman in her 40s and a man and a woman, both in their 20s, all suffered abrasions and were transported to Caboolture Hospital.

The dog was seized by animal control officers, according to a City of Moreton Bay Council spokesperson.

"Council received a report from Queensland Ambulance Service this morning about a dog attack incident in Morayfield and is currently investigating," the spokesperson said.

"Our thoughts go out to those who have been impacted."

It’s a plan for how the city is expected to grow over the next 30 years.

Why Justine Ross has named a former PM as her most admired NZer.

Fans are being warned to be vigilant when purchasing music, sport and entertainment tickets after it was revealed goods and services scams have cost Aussies almost $40 million this year.

The warning also comes after the news scammers hacked Australians' Facebook accounts and used their identities to sell fake Taylor Swift tickets to scores of fans who missed out on actual tickets.

To combat the risk of music lovers falling victim to sophisticated scams, banks are developing more proactive alerts for digital banking to help customers spot red flags.

READ MORE: Catfishing victim thought she was in love with Alex O'Loughlin

National Australia Bank (NAB) has extended the proactive alerts it introduced in March to include ticket and marketplace scams.

The alerts present customers with a real-time alert in the NAB app or NAB internet banking if a payment shows signs it could be a scam.

The banking giant is also launching a series of new ads warning Australians about ticket scams across platforms including Spotify, Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace.

NAB security advisory and awareness manager Laura Hartley said it was important Australians were aware of red flags when purchasing tickets online.

"Be extremely cautious about buying tickets online via social media," she said.

"We're hearing about criminals hacking social media profiles and selling bogus concert tickets to the account owner's friends, who aren't aware someone else is controlling the account.

"Even if it's a friend you legitimately know, pick up the phone and talk to them directly before sending money.

"Contact your bank immediately if you think you've been scammed." 

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Data shows millennials are the most likely group to lose money to buying and selling scams.

"Scammers play on our FOMO (fear of missing out) for concert tickets, often responding to fans who post on social media looking for tickets or listing bogus ones online that don't actually exist," Hartley said.

"While many customers ultimately complete their payment after receiving an alert, we know they are stopping and pausing because we see around $220,000 worth of payments abandoned daily."

Australians have reported losing $39,354,405 to buying and selling scams in 2023, according to data submitted to the government's ScamWatch service.

Thousands of Australians in Lebanon have been urged by the federal government to leave immediately amid warnings there is no guarantee the country's main airport will remain open.

Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs Tim Watts told the ABC today he understood there were about 15,000 Australians in the Middle Eastern country.

While he said many had deep family links with Lebanon, they should be wary of the Israel Hamas conflict potentially spreading through the region.

READ MORE: Australians trapped in Gaza freed after Egypt crossing opens

"I understand the deep roots and sort of the reluctance to leave but our strong advice to Australians in Lebanon is take the option to leave now," Watts said.

"We can't make any guarantees that for example, Beirut airport will remain open if the conflict spreads to the south of Lebanon and at that point, departure options become much more complex and much more difficult.

"We're really strongly encouraging Australians in Lebanon, take the opportunity now to leave because we don't know what their situation is going to look like in the coming days, in the coming weeks."

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"It may become much more difficult to leave and again may become much more difficult for the Australian government to assist you to leave."

Fighting continues on Lebanon's southern border with Israel where Hezbollah — a Lebanese armed group backed by Iran — has its main base.

Israel has ordered the evacuation of communities along the Lebanese border.

Watts said that 65 Australians remain stranded in Gaza.

READ MORE: School to stay closed after boy dies under lift

Overnight a number of Australians who have been trapped in the territory were able to cross into Egypt after the crucial Rafah border crossing opened for the first time after more than three weeks of siege.

At least 20 Australians had been among the 300 that crossed the border.

– Reported with CNN

New data has shown which Aussies love where they live the most.

Scammers posing as Australian actor Alex O'Loughlin are preying on vulnerable female fans of the Hawaii Five-O star, with some victims losing tens of thousands of dollars to catfishing schemes.

9news.com.au first revealed in February the case of a NSW woman who lost $35,000 to a catfisher who claimed to be O'Loughlin.

Since then, 9news.com.au has been contacted by several O'Loughlin fans who said they believed they were in love with O'Loughlin, only to be left gutted after finding out they had been catfished.

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One of those women is Jane, who asked for her surname to be withheld, from Wollongong, south of Sydney.

For more than two years – from May 2021 until last month in September – Jane thought she was in a relationship with O'Loughlin and that they were going to get married.

In order to convince her that they were legitimate, Jane's scammer deepfaked video calls and sent her mocked-up photos of a passport, driver's licence and divorce certificate – all purportedly belonging to O'Loughlin. 

Over the two-year period, the scammer wiped out Jane's entire life savings of $45,000.

"It's broken me. I've had to move back in with my parents because I couldn't afford to pay the rent," Jane, who works as a cleaner, said.

9news.com.au does not suggest O'Loughlin, who is based in Hawaii, has any connection in any way to Jane's scammer, or any of the others. Instead his identification has been illegally used to trick others.

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O'Loughlin's Australian representative previously told 9news.com.au the actor's agent and lawyer in the US were aware of the matter.

O'Loughlin's US agent did not respond to 9news.com.au's requests for comment for this latest story.

The scammers are known to set up fake social media accounts under the same name as the 47-year-old Canberra-born actor, who starred alongside Jennifer Lopez in the 2010 movie, The Back-up Plan.  

Jane said the nightmare all started for her when she liked a Facebook account called "Alex O'Loughlin Private".

Soon after, she received a message from another Facebook account, named "Alex O'Loughlin official".

"The message just said, 'Hi, how long have you been a fan?' And he asked what movies did I like him in," Jane said.

After a month of exchanging messages on Facebook, the scammer directed Jane to move their chat to the encrypted messaging app Telegram.

"He said he wanted us to be able to chat in private, where no one could hack into his account and find the messages," Jane said.

It was then that the scammer made his first request for money, asking Jane to join an exclusive O'Loughlin membership club for $3000.

"I paid it out of my tax return, I gave him my whole tax return," she said.

Savings and salary drained

Jane was directed to pay the money in Bitcoin, with instructions for how to purchase the online currency on a trading platform coming via email from someone claiming to be O'Loughlin's manager.

Over the next few months the relationship turned romantic, Jane said, with the scammer masquerading as O'Loughlin telling her he had divorced his wife.

While Jane said she was sceptical about why a famous actor would want to pursue a relationship with her, a woman he had never met, the scammer had all the right answers.

"I called him on it and said, 'I'm just an ordinary woman, why would you be interested in me?' He told me he knew heaps of people who married people who weren't famous," she said.

Over hundreds of messages, the scammer professed his love for Jane, sending photos of a ring and vowing they would get married.

But, all the while, there were demands for cash, with the scammer claiming his ex-wife had blocked access to his bank account.

"He said he got into a car accident with Scott (O'Loughlin's co-star Scott Caan on Hawaii Five-O) and there were hospital bills," Jane said.

"They wanted money for everything, his power even got cut off at one point," she said.

"I had $15,000 saved and then each week, when I would get paid from work, I would send the money to him." 

Jane paid thousands of dollars for the man she believed was O'Loughlin to fly out to Australia to meet her this year.

The visit also came with requests for money to pay for security, aviation fuel and to fix a fault on the private plane.

Things turned farcical, however, when the scammer, posing as O'Loughlin's manager, claimed the actor had been kidnapped after touching down in Australia and a ransom was being demanded.

"That's when I started to get suspicious," Jane said. 

"If someone that high-profile got kidnapped it would be all over the news, it would be everywhere.

"The manager wanted $5000 and I refused to pay it. I said, 'Send me the ransom note and I will take it to the police' and he said, 'no'."

Jane said was still trying to deal with the emotional and financial fallout from the scam, adding that she felt too ashamed to tell her friends or family what had happened.

"I now know it's all lies. I can't even watch him on TV anymore without bursting into tears – I just change the channel," she said. 

'I need help'

Jane said she was still responding to the scammer's messages and had reported the case to police in Australia and Hawaii.

However, police were yet to follow up on the matter, Jane said, adding she felt like she was left with nowhere to turn.

"I need help, but it seems like there is no one who will look into this," she said.

Romance scams are one of the most common ways Australians are being defrauded out of their savings, but the true extent remains unknown as many victims are too embarrassed to come forward.

So far this year, Australians reported $27.5 million in romance scam losses to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's Scamwatch.

The most common delivery method for romance scams is via social media. 

Meta, the owners of Facebook, advises users to check whether an account is verified in a bid to avoid celebrity impersonation scams.

A celebrity's account will carry a blue tick if it has been verified.

Have you got a story? Contact reporter Emily McPherson at em********@******om.au