News and politics recap: Taylor urges PM to ‘man up’ and apologise to Japan PM over ‘royal melons’

The Opposition have used Question Time to criticise the Prime Minister over his appearance on the Bush Deep podcast.

Angus Taylor questioned if Anthony Albanese would “man up” and apologise to the Japanese Prime Minister over his part in a joke about her royal melons.

“Why won’t the Prime Minister stop treating us like fools? Man up and say sorry to the Prime Minister of Japan,” Mr Taylor said.

While shadow foreign affairs minister Ted O’Brien had questioned if the PM his department leaked correspondence from the Japanese about the appearance on Nikki Osborne’s podcast.

Mr Albanese responded that the Opposition was staging a “stunt” by calling on the Australian Federal Police to investigate the leaked correspondence.

The PM insisted the government was instead focused on what mattered to Australians. He also talked up his government’s efforts to improve Australia’s relationship with Asian partners like Japan.

“My office and my team have spent four years carefully rebuilding our relationships,” he said.

“We take our relationship seriously, including our regular engagement with Japan.

“The Prime Minister of Japan is a good friend of Australia.”

The Coalition is proposing to scrap energy efficiency rules as part of a plan to radically simplify Australia’s cumbersome National Construction Code.

Shadow housing minister Andrew Bragg said building more basic homes would do more to solve the housing crisis, and has proposed slashing the building code to just 80 pages, down from 2000 pages now.

“It’s a house that won’t fall down, is secure, it won’t burn down but it doesn’t have anything else in it,” he told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.

“It’s a very simple house. It’s a basic amenity. You’ve got to have a window and a roof for example, it’s got to have that.”

He also rejected a suggestion that homes built without energy efficient standards would leave renters with higher power bills.

“Why do we have to make it compulsory for everyone? I just think it’s punitive for people on lower incomes,” Senator Bragg said.

“At the moment we don’t have enough houses - we just need to get more houses rather than get the best houses.”

Australian officials should have prioritised a bird flu vaccine for vulnerable mammals including Tasmanian devils and sea lions, a top expert says.

A leading ecologist has questioned the federal government’s response to the H5 outbreak after announcing a rollout of vaccines for captive populations of threatened birds.

While welcoming the vaccine trials, Deakin University’s Professor of Wildlife Ecology Euan Ritchie told AAP it was regrettable that there was no vaccine available for Australian mammals.

“Given the fact that Australia has a large number of threatened mammals, that are found nowhere else in the world, it would have been good to have seen a lot more effort and investment in developing a mammal-specific vaccine,” said Prof Ritchie, who is also The Australian Mammal Society president.

Read the full story here.

An ex-premier’s brother demanded money from lobbyists flush with cash from a fugitive property developer, an inquiry has been told.

Jeremy Greenwood, co-founder of the lobbying firm and who previously worked for Nationals leader Matt Canavan, gave evidence at the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption for a third day.

ICAC’s Operation Rosny is probing alleged illicit political donations and branch-stacking spearheaded by the Reformers - a conservative Christian faction among NSW Liberals.

Jean Nassif, who has a warrant out for his arrest over fraud allegations, transferred money to advisory firm Beckington, which retained him as a client.

Read the full story here.

Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Chris Minns are poised to sign a bailout agreement for the beleaguered Tomago aluminium smelter, ending months of uncertainty for workers.

NewsWire understands a deal is set to be signed on Thursday with mining giant Rio Tinto, which holds a majority stake in the NSW Hunter Valley smelter.

Tomago is Australia’s single largest consumer of electricity, sapping 10-12 per cent of NSW’s electricity supply. It employs about 1000 people.

It’s that need that sits at the heart of the site’s troubles.

Read the full story here.

Australia has joined a US-led push for nations to provide advance notice of missile launches, in a direct rebuke of China’s test firing in the South Pacific.

Within hours of Australia’s signing of a mutual-defence pact with Fiji in July, China confirmed a nuclear-capable missile had been launched from a submarine into the region, which is believed to have landed near Tuvalu.

Beijing was widely criticised internationally over the missile test, with a number of Pacific Island nations adopting a stronger public stance against their key economic partner than usually taken.

In a joint statement published by the US state department, Australia is among more than 40 nations to call for “all relevant countries” to commit to providing no less than 24 hours’ notice of launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles to affected nations.

Read the full story here.

A punishing run of storms, floods and hail knocked a big hole in Suncorp’s annual profit even as the insurance giant made more money from its core insurance business.

The owner of AAMI, GIO and Shannons booked a $1.03 billion annual profit, down 44 per cent from a year earlier.

Suncorp paid a record $10b-plus in claims, including $2.02b from natural hazards, blowing through its weather budget by $254 million after 18 major events across Australia and New Zealand.

Chief executive Steve Johnston said Suncorp had still managed to deliver for customers and shareholders despite the claims bill.

“This result demonstrates that it is possible to deliver for both shareholders and customers,” he said.

The headline fall overstates the damage. Last year’s $1.82b profit was padded by the sale of Suncorp Bank and its New Zealand life insurance business. Taking the sold bank out of both years, the fall was 34 per cent.

Investors shrugged off the profit plunge, sending Suncorp shares more than 4 per cent higher to $19.31 in early trade.

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The Commonwealth Bank has joined Westpac and NAB in noting a drop-off in home loan applications since the Federal Government announced in its May Budget that it would overhaul the capital gains tax system to open more of the housing market to first-homebuyers.

CEO Matt Comyn said housing activity has softened from a “high base” but loan application numbers appear to have stabilised in recent weeks.

On Monday, Westpac revealed its mortgage applications had fallen 20 per cent since the Budget, while NAB indicated on July 31 that its home loan applications were down 15 per cent in the June quarter.

Homebuyers did get some relief yesterday when the Reserve Bank of Australia left rates on hold for a second straight meeting.

Read more.

Pauline Hanson is the latest politician to condemn Anthony Albanese’s comments toward Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

The One Nation leader labelled the Prime Minister’s innuendo melon joke and lack of an apology as “wrong” at parliament on Wednesday morning.

“It’s disgusting what he’s done, and he cannot apologise, and that is not leadership,” Ms Hanson told reporters at a doorstop.

“If you get it wrong, you call it out and say it’s all wrong, and he’s continued with the lie. That just made it worse.

“I feel for that Prime Minister of Japan, Takaichi, and I think it’s wrong the way she has been treated.”

Barnaby Joyce has joined a chorus of criticism aimed at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s ongoing melon drama.

The One Nation MP accused Anthony Albanese of making a “complete fool of our nation” by making an innuendo joke about the Japanese PM in a podcast appearance.

Mr Joyce added that watching the PM’S cabinet of female ministers defend him was “excruciating”, arguing that a “riot” would have erupted if he had made the same comments.

“Would he dare say that about Penny Wong? Would he dare say that about Tanya Plibersek? How about his mother or his grandmother? Of course not. He’s trying to be king of the kiddies, and he’s made a complete fool of our nation and a complete fool of himself,” he said.

“It’s absolutely excruciating to watch Tanya Plibersek and others trying to defend him … if someone else does something similar in One Nation or the Coalition, they will try to crucify us. It shows a lack of authenticity.”