Television interview with Minister Butler, Sunrise - 28 October 2025

NATALIE BARR, HOST: Well, changing gears now, and this is a major problem that needs to be fixed quickly. Summer is just around the corner in Australia, and after a string of sunscreen recalls, people no longer know which brands are safe and which are not.
 
MATT SHIRVINGTON, HOST: Yeah, in recent months our health regulator has been forced to take more than 20 sunscreen labels off the shelves after tests revealed they did not provide anywhere near the protection that they were claiming. Now, it’s left Aussie families in danger of serious sun exposure without even realising it and a serious lack of trust in our main line of defence against skin cancer.
 
BARR: For more, Health Minister Mark Butler joins us live in Canberra. Good morning, Mark. Summer is just about here and people don’t know if the sunscreen they are buying actually works. What’s being done to fix this?
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Morning to both of you. You’re right. Even though the weather is not particularly hot yet, we are moving into high UV rating. For example, sun protection is recommended from about 9am to 4pm today in Sydney and in Melbourne, even though it's not particularly warm in either of those cities. We know that sunscreen is the best of the five tips that you should always bear in mind as we're heading into your high UV season I know, Nat and Shirvo, that people have been really concerned about the reports that were uncovered by the terrific consumer organisation Choice about, frankly, some false advertising, where you had products branded as SPF 50, which is pretty high, but only showing in the lab that they had a rating of as low as four. Our TGA, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the regulator, has been working hard over the last several months to track this down. What we've found is that they can all be traced. These products that were overstating their protection factor can all be traced back to one ingredient and one lab in particular overseas that was doing some testing that ended up being pretty bodgy, frankly. We're very confident now that the products that you'll see on the supermarket shelves or in your pharmacist or chemist are there with accurate testimony on their labels about their protection factor, or their SPF. I can't state strongly enough how important it is as we move into high UV season to follow those five sun smart tips.
 
SHIRVINGTON: So Minister, does that mean all the bad ones are gone? They've been taken off the shelves completely? What brand do you use?
 
BUTLER: I don't want to advertise, but I always go for the Cancer Council brand, partly because I'm confident that it does what it says it does, but also a little bit of money goes back into the terrific work of the Cancer Council. For example, we're about to launch our annual skin cancer prevention advertising campaign, which on TV will be run exclusively through Channel 7. We've got great support from Channel 7 over the last couple of years. We run it through the cricket season. It gets terrific exposure. I go after the Cancer Council brands, but there's plenty of brands. And there should be in Australia because tragically this is our national cancer. It still takes five or six lives every single day. But we know it's almost entirely preventable if we follow those five tips; slip, slop, slap, which is what I was taught when I was young. But we've added another two as well; seek some shade and slide on some sunglasses.
 
BARR: Yeah, the problem here is people don't trust sunscreen. We've just done a poll asking people, do you trust your sunscreen? And it's 50-50. So there is a brand problem here with sunscreen as a whole. How can you guarantee that the problem ones are gone off the shelves?
 
BUTLER: Because we've done the work through the regulator. We'll continue to monitor these products to make sure that the lab testing reflects the claim on the front of the bottle. If it's SPF 50, we're going to make sure that that is reflected in the lab testing. But I can't state strongly enough, other than staying inside, which people don't want to do on a beautiful summer's day, sunscreen is your best protection, and using it in accordance with the instructions on the bottle is really important to prevent skin cancer, which, as I said, again, tragically, is Australia's national cancer.
 
SHIRVINGTON: Yeah. And that's the thing. It's not even going out sunbaking or to the beach or whatever. It's just getting out and about. The other thing, too, that we've heard from our viewers particularly is chemicals that are being used in sunscreens as well. Is that another area of concern? Is there any testing being done there and whether or not that will create some sort of clarity about what's being used in these sunscreens?
 
BUTLER: A lot of this information gets spread through social media. It's important as government that we have regulators that look at the science and the evidence about this, and we're constantly doing that to make sure that we're keeping up to date with new ingredients that might be in the sunscreen. The TGA, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, right now for example is undertaking a broad consultation about three or four particular ingredients that we see now in them. That's something they do on a rolling basis to give us confidence as government and, more importantly, the community that the therapies people are using. Whether it's sunscreen or medicines or other therapies we use to keep ourselves healthy, first of all, do what they say they'll do, and secondly, are safe and effective.
 
BARR: Okay, there you go. Thank you very much, Health Minister Mark Butler, confirming that all the bad sunscreens, the dodgy ones, taken off the shelves, but also that the TGA is testing the chemicals in sunscreen, because we know that that has been huge on social media. We will get back in touch with him when they finish those tests.