Good afternoon.
Nearly 3 million workers in Australia will receive a 4.75% pay rise, while about 100,000 of the country’s lowest paid will receive a higher 6% increase, after the Fair Work Commission handed down its annual minimum wage decision.
Announcing the 4.75% decision applicable to the roughly 2.8 million workers on award wages, the Fair Work Commission’s president, Justice Adam Hatcher, announced that the lowest ongoing wage rate for employees would climb from nearly $24.95 an hour to $26.44 – a lift of just under 6%.
Hatcher said this year’s decision, which applies from 1 July, was “particularly challenging” in the context of surging fuel prices adding to already existing inflationary pressures.
He pointed that falling living standards had hit the lowest paid the hardest, justifying what he called “additional measures” to protect more vulnerable employees.
Unions had demanded a 6% minimum wage increase after last month’s budget projected inflation reaching 5% in the year to June. A peak employers’ association, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was calling for a 3.5% increase.
The cost of living has been the number one issue weighing on Australian households since inflation tore through the economy in the wake of the Covid-19 lockdowns.
The previous minimum wage increase was 3.5% for 2025-26.
Top news
-
‘Not the deal promised’: Labor’s Ed Husic questions Aukus pact that will deliver secondhand subs
-
Prosecutors drop one charge of indecent assault against Alan Jones in high-profile case
-
Dog rescued from island off Australian coast after being swept into ocean
-
California’s conservative Huntington Beach could get a gay, Democratic congressman
-
Minnesota Republicans rebuked for moment of silence for George Floyd’s killer
-
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni return to court a month after reaching settlement
In pictures
Palm Springs hosted a Guinness World Records attempt for the largest gathering ever of Marilyn Monroe lookalikes to mark the actor’s 100th birthday. Monroe visited the desert oasis city frequently as an escape from Hollywood.
What they said …
***
“My process is not good enough, and that is why I’ve come here today and I’ve apologised and said that I should not have provided a character reference. Going forward, I will not be providing character references. Full stop.” – Luba Grigorovitch.
Newly promoted Victorian government minister Luba Grigorovitch says she will never write another character reference after revealing she regrets six she has penned, including one for a taxi driver convicted of assaulting female passengers.
Podcast
The party dragging Nigel Farage further to the right
Does Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain threaten to erode the Reform UK vote share in the Makerfield byelection? And if they are successful in taking votes from Reform, what would that mean for the future of Farage’s party and wider UK politics?
Before bed read
For tens of thousands of years, these Palaeolithic artworks in a Spanish cave went unseen. When they were rediscovered, onlookers marvelled at their vivid beauty. One of the world’s leading experts took writer Stephen Phelan for a close-up look.
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: WORT. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
Sign up
If you would like to receive this Afternoon Update to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here, or start your day with a curated breakdown of the key stories you need to know with our Morning Mail newsletter. You can follow the latest in US politics by signing up for This Week in Trumpland.
