Australia news as it happened: Albanese to accelerate 5 per cent deposit scheme for first home buyers; Lambie criticises ‘rude’ Trump administration

Australian sunscreen brand Naked Sundays has quietly pulled one of its products from shelves months after a controversial SPF test, conducted by consumer watchdog Choice, sparked industry-wide scrutiny over sun protection claims.

In a statement shared on its website on Monday, Naked Sundays said it has “temporarily paused” the sale of its Collagen Glow Mineral sunscreen, which claims to be SPF50+, while the brand awaits “new, complete independent SPF results, and subsequent guidance from the TGA on their investigation into SPF testing”.

Preliminary SPF results from a “new independent lab” for the Collagen Glow Mineral sunscreen produced by Naked Sundays’ United States manufacturer supported the SPF50+ rating, it said.

Naked Sundays said it intends to sell that version of the product on the Australian market, pending further test results.

“This precautionary pause only affects our Collagen Glow Mineral produced by one Australian manufacturer, and no other products in our range have been impacted,” the company said. The brand did not disclose their manufacturers due to “confidentiality agreements”.

It comes days after sunscreen brand Ultra Violette pulled its Lean Screen sunscreen from the Australian market.

In June, Choice said 16 of 20 popular sunscreen products in Australia failed to meet the SPF levels on their labels. Ultra Violette’s Lean Screen SPF 50+ Mattifying Zinc Sunscreen was the worst performer, coming back with an SPF level of four.

Naked Sundays’ products were not included in the Choice test.

Manager of opposition business Alex Hawke has asked the prime minister whether the decision to recognise a Palestinian state has jeopardised a meeting with US President Donald Trump – yet to happen since Albanese was re-elected in May.

The prime minister criticised Hawke for the “flippant” question about a serious international policy matter.

He said “constructive” conversations with Trump had been had, and that Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles was in the US today meeting with counterparts.

“We continue to engage ... in international politics in a way that protects our sovereignty,” Albanese said.

Independent MP Sophie Scamps has asked when the government will release the Briggs report into whether public sector board appointments were being based on merit. The report was finalised 18 months ago.

“Why has the government reneged on their self-declared commitment to transparency?” Scamps asked.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government was committed to transparency and would make the report public “in due course”.

“We’ve improved the public sector board diversity since coming to office,” Chalmers said. “The government has a broad and ambitious public service reform agenda. It is about transparency. It is about making sure that we make the best appointments that we can as a government.”

One of the two court cases that have been standing in the way of a final decision over Woodside’s massive North West Shelf gas project has been adjudicated, three years after the process began.

In 2022, traditional custodian Raelene Cooper applied to the federal environment minister, requesting that further fossil fuel development of Murujuga, also known as the Barrup Peninsula in northern Western Australia, be blocked to protect its cultural heritage.

The region contains one of the world’s most significant rock art sites, which Cooper argued would be damaged by construction and emissions from the proposal to extend Woodside’s gas project from 2030 to 2070.

But three years later, the minister has yet to make ruling, prompting Cooper to call on the Federal Court to instruct the current environment minister, Murray Watt, to make a determination before September 12.

Justice Angus Stewart ruled on Monday that three years was too long a delay for the minister and the federal department to make its decision, but declined to issue a deadline for the decision, saying he expected the department to do so in the coming weeks.

He invited Cooper to return to court for further relief if the decision had not been made by September 12.

The government was ordered to pay Cooper’s costs. The federal government has already given conditional approval for the project’s extension, but negotiations over attached environmental conditions are thought to have delayed the final decision.

Critics of the project say it will not only damage the cultural heritage of the critical site, but will undermine Australia’s contribution to the global effort to rein in global warming.

A Supreme Court challenge by Friends of Australian Rock Art to the Western Australian government’s decision to approve the development will return to court in October.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has sledged Skills and Training Minister Andrew Giles in question time, suggesting he was not up to the job.

Giles was moved out of the immigration portfolio during the last term after a period of scrutiny of his role managing the NZYQ High Court case that led to immigration detainees being released. The government had no power to stop the release of detainees, but the opposition blamed Labor for not responding quickly enough.

Giles was delivering an answer just now when Ley chimed in across the dispatch box, saying: “How is this guy still a minister?”

Last term, Ley was Giles’ opposition shadow as skills spokeswoman.

Ley has so far spoken over Labor speakers far less than her predecessor Peter Dutton.

Shadow treasurer Ted O’Brien has asked the government why it won’t introduce fiscal rules to contain government spending.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers turned the question on Coalition economic policy, saying the opposition took policies of higher taxes, a bigger deficit, and more debt to the May election.

The debate about budget rules was the catalyst for a fiery exchange between the treasurer and his opposition counterpart during the economic roundtable last week, with Chalmers saying the comments from O’Brien were not appropriate because “this isn’t question time”.

In today’s question time, Chalmers said the Coalition hadn’t learned anything from its election loss, and should not be taken seriously on the budget.

Albanese said he wanted Chalmers to continue doing his “great work”.

The prime minister likened the opposition to rabbits digging a deeper hole by failing to deliver a surplus while in government.

Saying with question time now, and Liberal MP Tom Venning said the Labor government had presided over a “historic rise of red tape in the housing sector” and an expansion of the National Construction Code, while Labor MP Tim Watts was ejected from the chamber for interrupting Venning’s question to the prime minister.

Albanese said if the Coalition liked the policy, it should “back in the government” rather than trying to obstruct the changes.

“We on this side of the house are focused on housing… We on this side are fighting for Australians. [The Coalition] are fighting each other.”

Labor has realised the merits of Coalition housing policy, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has suggested in the first question time question of the sitting week.

Ley pointed to Labor’s partial adoption of the Coalition’s election pledge to freeze the National Construction Code, and the expansion of a Morrison-era policy for first home buyers to be able to buy a home with a 5 per cent deposit.

The prime minister responded with a list of Labor policy on housing the Coalition has opposed, including the Housing Australia Future Fund, and incentivising foreign investment in housing development in Australia.

“We saw [the Coalition] opposed everything that we put forward [in the past term]. Now they’re opposing, according to themselves, their own policy as well,” he said.