News and politics recap: Anthony Albanese blasts China for destabilising Pacific with missile test

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has addressed the growing backlash Anthony Albanese has faced over podcast comments about Kylie Minogue.

The controvery stems from Mr Albanese’s participation in a game of “shag, marry, date”, where he said he would shag and marry the Australian pop princess.

In a statement on Monday, the Prime Minister had “unequivocally” apologised for the remarks, but backlash has continued to grow.

During a press conference on Tuesday, Angus Taylor took aim at the Labor leader’s “hypocrisy” over the scandal.

“This is the problem with this Prime Minister - he says one thing and does another,” Mr Taylor told media in Darwin.

“I mean the hypocrisy of his comments on that podcast - extraordinary.

“This is a Prime Minister, every day of the week, he says one thing and does another.”

Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has taken aim at the prime minister, labelling his comments about Kylie Minogue as “extremely misogynistic”.

The Northern Territory senator appeared alongside Opposition Leader Angus Taylor at a press conference in Darwin on Tuesday morning.

During the conference, the frontbencher took aim at Anthony Albanese over his controversial remark about shagging Kylie Minogue on a podcast, which the Prime Minister apologised “unequivocally” for.

“This Prime Minister should stand before the Australian people, stand before women right around our country and apologise unreservedly himself,” she said.

“Not through a statement, but do it for the sake of every single women in this country.

“What sort of message is he telling our young men - that it’s okay to treat women and objectify them in this manner? It is highly inappropriate and I’ve been disgusted by these comments.”

The Minister for Defence Industry, Pat Conroy, has revealed Australia was given mere hours of warning before the Chinese government launched a nuclear-capable missile over the South Pacific.

In a radio interview on Tuesday morning, Conroy said the government had been monitoring the Chinese group involved in the launch for some time but blasted the nation for giving “insufficient notice” of its plans.

“We have communicated with the Chinese government and will continue to do so,” he told Radio National.

“They obviously informed the Australian government about the test before they did it, with insufficient notice to be honest, but they did provide that notice.

“We don’t think it’s the world’s best practice. Best practice is to follow the Hague Convention, which has longer examples of that sort of event occuring.”

Former Home Affairs boss Mike Pezzullo has called the timing of China’s ballistic missile strike into the southern Pacific a “cause for concern”, with the ICBM being launched just hours after Australia penned a landmark security pact with Fiji.

“I would certainly be asking, if I was the Prime Minister or the government - do we have a counter-intelligence problem here?”, the former bureacrat told Sky News on Tuesday morning.

“Is it possible that they had at such advanced notice of when the Prime Minister would be on the ground in Suva, that they also orchestrated a secondary effect, which was to disrupt, embarrass, put out a scratch across the signing of the Fiji defence agreement.

“That would be deeply concerning. They’re good enough to do it.”

Despite his concerns, Mr Pezzullo said the primary objective of a launch in any event was to ensure it can retailiate in the event of a nuclear attack on mainland China.

“Even it was planned to occur on the same day, in fact within a couple of hours. I would see the disruption of the Fiji Agreement ceremony as a secondary effect,” he said.

“In other words, we’re roadkill in a much larger game, which is really developing this assured second strike capability.”

A sea of mourners dressed in black have packed into Tehran for a procession as part of the funeral of the nation’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

At an early stage on the procession route, people chanted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” And some of the mourners demanded retribution.At an early stage on the procession route, people chanted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” And some of the mourners demanded retribution.

Ezat Vezvaei, 67, whose son, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed in the US-Israeli war, rapped her fingers on a Trump poster that read “wanted dead or alive.”

“Just be sure we will take our revenge from this Trump!” Ms Vezvaei said.

​​Read the full story here. ​​

Australia is expected to suffer from the weakest economic growth since 1991 recession as unemployment soared to COVID-era levels.

Deloitte Access Economics is forecasting gross domestic product will expand by less than 2 per cent for the next two years, marking the longest stretch of poor economic performance in more than three decades.

This would include economic growth of 2.2 per cent in 2025-26, 1.3 per cent in 2026-27 and 1.9 per cent in 2027-28.

Unemployment would climb from 4.4 per cent now to 5 per cent in 2027-28, reaching levels last seen in late 2021 when Sydney and Melbourne were in COVID-19 lockdown.

Deloitte Access Economics partner Stephen Smith said the Middle East oil crisis was yet to be fully resolved.

“To date, 2026 has revealed the vulnerabilities that have developed within the Australian economy over recent history,” he said.

“Australia is now structurally exposed in ways that have become hard to ignore.”

Defence Minister Richard Marles said he was concerned about the ballistic missile test China had carried out.

“It’s been launched from a submarine, which also implies something about the range that China is building in terms of deploying nuclear capabilities, and all of that is obviously destabilising to the region, and that’s our concern,” he told Sky News on Tuesday.

“We are concerned about the test that’s taken place, and we’ve expressed that very clearly to China.”

Mr Marles said the missile test was likely to come up at the next bilateral meetings between Australia and China, either at a ministerial or leader level.

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The Coalition has demanded that Anthony Albanese apologise for “crude” comments made about Japan’s first female prime minister Sanae Takaichi, The Australian has reported.

During the podcast, which he suggested that he wanted to “shag” pop star Kylie Minogue, the Prime Minister recalled being gifted a “royal melon” by Ms Takaichi, who visited Australia in May.

Opposition communications spokeswoman Senator Sarah Henderson said Mr Albanese’s “one-line apology” was “wholly inadequate” given his similarly “crude” remarks about Ms Takaichi, The Australian said.

Liberal frontbencher James Paterson says Anthony Albanese was too slow to apologise for crude comments about Kylie Minogue and should remember he occupies the office of Prime Minister.

On Monday, Mr Albanese apologised following a public outcry over comments made on a podcast where he suggested he wanted to “shag” the Australian pop icon.

Senator Paterson has told the ABC his subsequent apology was “slow and inadequate”.

“This is exactly why I’ve been warning parliamentarians against diminishing themselves and their offices by engaging in stunts like this.

“The Prime Minister shouldn’t be participating in comedy podcasts, certainly not if he can’t control himself and prevent himself from making sexual observations about prominent Australian women, and the least he can do is apologise for it.

“He should remember he is not a social media influencer, he is not a celebrity, he’s a Prime Minister, and his position is more important than just his own personal reputation.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has arrived in Syria for talks with President Ahmed al-Sharaa, in the first visit by a European leader since former dictator, President Bashar al-Assad, was ousted from power in 2024.

Macron was greeted at Damascus International Airport on Monday evening by Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, Reuters said.

“I am here to affirm France’s commitment to the Syrian people. For a sovereign Syria, united in its diversity and at peace with its neighbours. Together, let’s open a new page of stability and peace,” Macron posted on X, according Reuters.