What we learned today, Thursday 25 July
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Here are the day’s main stories:
Frontbench ministers Linda Burney and Brendan O’Connor announced their retirement, with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, expected to name their replacements on Sunday.
Seven Israelis and one Israeli youth group involved in violent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have been hit with financial sanctions and travel bans by the Australian government, the foreign minister, Penny Wong, announced.
A former Western Australian justice department boss says youth detainees under his watch were subjected to abuse.
There is not enough evidence to prove an ingredient used in a popular weedkiller causes cancer, an Australian federal court judge has found.
The amount of sea ice floating in both the Arctic and Antarctica is close to a record low for this time of year.
The Australian National University says it has taken “immediate and comprehensive action” and “unreservedly apologised” after an error in timesheet processing meant it underpaid 2,290 staff by about $2m.
Two pilots died after a helicopter crash in the Kimberley.
We will see you back here for more news tomorrow.
Updated
Health ministers agree to public consultation on children’s food
The wheels are turning on some areas of food regulation and policy after state and territory food and health ministers met today in Adelaide chaired by the assistant minister for health, Ged Kearney.
Public consultation will begin in August on commercial foods for infants and young children in order to improve its composition, labelling and texture. Currently, Australia’s infant food labelling’s “health halo effect” risks leaving babies under-nourished.
Ministers are coordinating changes to improve nutrition labelling on both the front and back of packaged foods. They decided there would be a holistic review of the nutrition information panels (NIP) on the back of products as well as preparatory work to inform future decision-making on mandating the front of pack health star rating system.
The work on the health star rating is intended to “facilitate an efficient process” to mandate the system if industry does not meet the voluntary target of 70% of intended products displaying the rating by 2025. At the last food ministers meeting in May they expressed their disappointment that uptake was “significantly off track” with only 32% of products displaying the rating.
However, the ministers said the work on the health star rating would not include a full review of its algorithm despite experts raising concerns the food industry, which was heavily involved in designing it, can game it by adding synthetic fibres, proteins and artificial sweeteners:
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