Almost three millionworkers will get a pay rise of 4.75 per cent, and 100,000 minimum wage workers will receive a six per cent increase taking their remuneration to just over $1,000 a week, after a Fair Work Commission ruling yesterday.
The decision, which has implications for employees, employers, interest rates and the health of the economy, came after the union movement called for a six per cent increase, and business groups called for an increase of between 3.5 and four per cent.
In total, 21 per cent of the workforce is directly affected, particularly in healthcare, retail, accommodation and food services, admin and support.
The Commission’s Justice Adam Hatcher said the “wildcard” was the Middle East conflict and its impact on inflation. That prevented a bigger rise and he said the decision was particularly challenging given the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
On the battle over deepfakes in the AI era - and Ion Video's new patent that offers a solution:
"Current methodologies around saying whether a file is identified as human or non-human is to have AI systems watch the video and try and detect things in the video stream, or read metadata inside the file. But metadata is just hidden information and that’s easily, easily removed by technologies.
But when you’re actually at the cellular level — at the DNA of the file — you’ve got a lot more control.
So what we built is an input technology that allows all of these people in the world — the Sonys, the Fujis, the people building these detection systems in cameras — to be able to imprint that at the cellular level of video.
So we can now identify, at the 50th of a second level, every one of those little building blocks and attach verification around them.
So it’s very, very hard for deepfake algorithms to get around that because we’re actually operating at the real-time assembly layer of the video itself."
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News in brief
Australia’s current account balance has fallen into deficit for the first time since 2017, following a drop in commodity exports and a surge in data centre equipment and fuels.
Requests for insurance coverage on electric vehicles has nearly doubled this year, as car dealerships report slowing sales if conventional vehicles, and high demand for EVs.
Opposition leader Angus Taylor has called for an early election, saying Labor has no mandate to make changes to capital gains tax and negative gearings, particularly since PM Anthony Albanese didn’t take the policy to the last election.
Kmart is taking on IKEA, opening its first big box home store to compete with the Swedish furniture giant.
A New Zealand footballer playing in the World Cup in the US this month has gone from less 5,000 Instagram followers to more than 3.5 million in 48 hours after being singled out as the 'least-known' player by an Argentinian influencer.
Fear-o-meter
What does the Fair Work Commission decision to award low paid workers a 4.75 per cent increase mean for interest rates?
It probably won’t make much of a difference to the near-term inflation outlook. The decision applies to minimum wage workers, and it is only about 20 per cent of the workforce.
However, if 4.75 per cent becomes the benchmark for broader wage-setting across enterprise bargaining agreements, affecting millions more workers, then the central bank could have a problem.
The economy can’t afford a wholesale 4.75 per cent hike in wages. Businesses can’t afford it. If it happens, prices will have to rise. And so will interest rates.
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