Wages rise faster than inflation

Australia Broadcast Center

14-05-2025

Andy Park: Hello, welcome to The World Today. It's Wednesday the 14th of May. I'm Andy Park coming to you from Gadigal Land in Sydney. Today, Syria open for business, US sanctions lifted with Donald Trump to meet with the nation's new leader. And it's dirty work, but someone's got to do it. Meet Leeroy the dog trained to sniff out disease.
Joanne Griffiths: I teach the dog what I want it to do and when it does it or at least part of it, I reinforce. And Leroy loves food because he's a lab or mostly lab, whereas a Kelpie would want to work the sheep.
Andy Park: The tight jobs market looks to finally be helping workers bargain for higher pay. Official data shows wages growth for the three months to March at 0.9 of 1% and 3.4% over the year. Our business correspondent, David Taylor, joined me a short time ago. David, which industries are driving these pay rises?
David Taylor: Andy, the largest industry contributors to the quarterly wages growth were healthcare and social assistance, 1.4% and education and training, 1.3%. Now, the private sector wages rose 0.9 of 1% and the public sector wages there rose 1%. That's seasonally adjusted over the quarter. Now, interestingly enough, core inflation is running at 2.9%. Now, core inflation strips out those volatile or bumpy items in the goods and services basket. So, given that wages growth is at 3.4% over the year, we know that wages growth is now solidly beating the general rise in prices across the economy, Andy.
Andy Park: The Reserve Bank has said repeatedly it's watching wages growth in relation to interest rates. An interest rate cut on Tuesday is considered a near certainty. Does this data change that view at all?
David Taylor: Not specifically. We know that the Reserve Bank had in its forecasts that wages growth would lift. It's whether the lift from 3.2% in the December quarter to 3.4% in the last quarter is enough to convince the Reserve Bank that perhaps wages growth could proceed further and go higher from here. We'll have to wait and see on that. It's ambiguous. But here's ANZ Bank Senior Economist Adelaide Timbrell.
Adelaide Timbrell: The latest wage growth number does not increase the likelihood that the Reserve Bank will move in May, but neither would it be a deal breaker. The wage price index is in line with the Reserve Bank's forecast for mid this year. And given the uncertainty in the global backdrop, it's still more likely that the Reserve Bank will cut rates in May by 25 basis points.
David Taylor: Are we ruling out though a supersized half a percentage point cut next Tuesday?
Adelaide Timbrell: At this stage, a 50 basis point cut, I would say, is extremely unlikely. We haven't seen any outsized rate cuts from other central banks due to the global backdrop, nor is there anything in the domestic economy that would create a need for stimulus. A 25 basis point cut in May, given the global backdrop, is appropriate. Without the global uncertainty, you could make an argument for no cuts in May. So, I think a 50 is very unlikely.
Andy Park: Economist Adelaide Timbrell there. And David Australia's largest investment bank, Macquarie Group has found itself in hot water again with the regulator. What's happened this week?
David Taylor: The regulator is a dog with a bone here, Andy. Macquarie Securities is being sued by ASIC in the Supreme Court. The regulator says Macquarie engaged in misleading conduct by misreporting millions of short sales to the market between 2009, so around the time of the global financial crisis, and 2024. Now, Andy, a short sale involves borrowing shares at a high price, selling them, and then buying them back at hopefully a lower price to make a profit. Now, this comes less than a week since ASIC found significant supervision and compliance failures in Macquarie's derivatives trading arm. So, separate to what we're talking about here in terms of the stockbroking arm, that was the derivatives trading arm, and imposed stringent conditions on its financial services license as a result. Now, ASIC's latest move reflects, quote, the ongoing and deep concerns we have with Macquarie Group and its weak remediation of longstanding issues, which led us to impose additional conditions on Macquarie Bank's Australian financial services license only last week, end quote. Now, Andy, Macquarie says the reporting issues identified in the proceedings have been remediated with additional controls implemented. Macquarie says it's now reviewing ASIC's claim, and Macquarie has said, quote, as the matter is before the court, it would be inappropriate for Macquarie to make any further comment.
Andy Park: David Taylor there. A Queensland labourer who travelled to Ukraine three years ago to join the fight against Russia is feared to have been killed in battle with authorities yet to locate his remains.
Caleb List: I wanted to test myself. I wanted to, like, again, I wanted to join the French Foreign Legion. I wanted to push myself to the extreme. So, I came here with the same motivation and basically done that. And now I just, I just do this because that's the only thing I'm really good at.
Andy Park: Former Gladstone resident Caleb List speaking to the German public broadcaster last year. The ABC's defence correspondent Andrew Greene has the story. Andrew, what do we know about Caleb List's journey to the front line?
Andrew Greene: He's a young man in his twenties and had lived in Gladstone in Queensland. He'd worked at the Yarwan refinery as a trade assistant, according to his social media pages. In about 2022, he noticed what was happening in Ukraine and decided to head to Europe to join the Foreign Legion in armed services. But before doing so, we also know that Caleb List had been an army cadet while at school and had tried unsuccessfully to join the Australian army. So, three years ago, like other foreign fighters around the world, he made the journey to Ukraine to enlist in that country's Foreign Legion.
Andy Park: And what do we know about his presumed death?
Andrew Greene: We believe that he has been missing since late April. So, members of his unit, the Foreign Legion in which he was serving, say he has not been seen since about April 28. He was taking part in fierce fighting that was occurring in eastern Ukraine in the Kharkiv region, near the city of Izhimur. But the Australian has not been heard of since and his comrades fear that he has been killed and his body has been unable to be recovered. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is not saying very much at all. In fact, it's citing privacy reasons for not commenting, but it has again reminded Australians not to travel to that part of the world. The foreign minister, Penny Wong, was speaking to the ABC this morning and did confirm that the case was being examined.
Penny Wong: I'm always constrained in terms of these matters as a result of privacy. But I will just simply say that this is a very dangerous place to be. And we are assisting, providing consular assistance to a family in relation to this matter.
Andy Park: Foreign Minister Penny Wong there. And Andrew, what do we know about the other Australians who have been captured or killed in Ukraine?
Andrew Greene: Since the war broke out, there have been a number of Australians confirmed as killed on the Ukrainian battlefield. Precise numbers tend to vary, but it's certainly getting close to a dozen Australians who have now lost their life in Ukraine. We know there's also a high profile prisoner of war, Oscar Jenkins, who remains in Russian captivity. Earlier this week, also confirmation that in recent days, another Australian man and a former soldier, Nick Parsons, was killed while working for a non-government organisation clearing landmines in Ukraine. He was killed in an incident that is believed to involve an improvised explosive device, which killed him and a British national.
Andy Park: Defence correspondent Andrew Greene. President Donald Trump is making a string of foreign policy splashes during his diplomatic dash through the Middle East. They include lifting US sanctions on Syria to help the country move forward and a huge arms deal with Saudi Arabia. There's also an artificial intelligence agreement, which some analysts say is one of the most significant developments of President Trump's trip so far. Here's Stephanie Smail.
Stephanie Smail: For a business-minded US president who lives for a deal, Saudi Arabia is friendly territory. Donald Trump praising his host, the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, after a lavish welcome.
Donald Trump: Known him a long time now. There's nobody like him. Thank you very much. Appreciate it very much, my friend.
Stephanie Smail: It's a money-making trip as well as a foreign policy one. Donald Trump wooing Saudi Arabia and others in the region to help boost the US economy.
Donald Trump: We're adding over $1 trillion more in terms of investment and investment into our country and buying our products. And, you know, nobody makes military equipment like us. We have the best military equipment, the best missiles, the best rockets, the best everything. Best submarines, by the way.
Stephanie Smail: There's movement on policy too, with the US president saying he's agreed to lift sanctions on Syria and again issuing a stern warning to Iran about its nuclear plans.
Donald Trump: If I can make a deal with Iran, I'll be very happy if we're going to make your region and the world a safer place. But if Iran's leadership rejects this olive branch and continues to attack their neighbours, then we will have no choice but to inflict massive maximum pressure, drive Iranian oil exports to zero, like I did before.
Stephanie Smail: While President Trump's warnings are stark, experts argue they're not new. Greg Calstrom is the Middle East correspondent for the news outlet The Economist. He says the United States has made repeated threats to Iran, but there are still fundamental questions about the US's position.
Gregg Calstrom: We've heard very mixed messages from the Trump administration. Trump himself said last week they haven't decided on the question of enrichment. His Middle East envoy, Steve Whitcoft, said there can't be any enrichment, that's a red line. But previously, a few weeks earlier, Whitcoft had allowed to keep enriching under a new deal. So it seems as if the Trump administration still doesn't know exactly what it wants from a new agreement with Iran.
Stephanie Smail: Analysts say the serious shift could help the country recover in the wake of the Assad regime.
Jonathan Panikoff: There's still a long, long ways to go, but at least now there's a real chance to be able to do it.
Stephanie Smail: That's Jonathan Panikoff, the director of the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. He says if Donald Trump is genuine about lifting sanctions, it would be a major turning point.
Jonathan Panikoff: If that's the case, then it will mean that you'll be able to get a lot of humanitarian aid and a lot of construction aid in quite quickly to begin the process. That, in turn, the hope is will spur the Syrian economy more regionally. That should provide an opportunity for greater stability. It's something we know that the Turks are going to be quite supportive of and have wanted. It's also something that's going to be a positive for Lebanon, which is also trying to create a more stable environment with Hezbollah now quite diminished over the last year due to Israeli airstrikes.
Stephanie Smail: But Jonathan Panikoff says an AI deal, which has also been reached between the US and Saudi Arabia, will have a huge long-term impact. He explains the Trump administration has realised it needs to work with its allies to beat China in the AI world.
Jonathan Panikoff: I think what the Trump administration has said is, look, you can try as hard as you want, but at the end of the day, the way that technology is evolving and how the chips are evolving, you're not going to be able to block them out. And if you don't let your closer allies in the Middle East and elsewhere, aside from, say, Australia or Canada or the UK, have access to these chips, then all you're doing is guaranteeing that those countries will turn to China to engage with China and actually help propel China more quickly through their own investments.
Stephanie Smail: President Trump is scheduled to stop in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates before heading home.
Andy Park: Stephanie Smail. On ABC Radio across Australia, streaming online and on the ABC Listen app, this is The World Today. Thanks for your company. The former girlfriend of music mogul Sean Diddy Combs has broken down in tears in a Manhattan courtroom as she described marathon sexual encounters known as freak-offs. Casandra Ventura, also known as Cassie, is the prosecution's star witness in the Hip-Hop Stars Criminal Sex Trafficking and Racketeering trial. Our North America correspondent Lauren Day has been in court in New York and a warning, her report contains some distressing details. Lauren, some horrific allegations detailed today. Just take me through Cassie's testimony.
Lauren Day: Yeah, Andy, Cassie Ventura was the witness that everyone's been waiting to hear from in this trial and she took the stand from just before lunch through to the end of the day. She described initially the beginning of her long relationship with Sean Diddy Combs. It went on for about 11 years. She spoke about how she fell in love with him and how she found him really charming at the beginning, really fun, really charismatic, but that over time she experienced a very different side, that he became abusive and controlling and that he assaulted her many times. She said he kicked her, he hit her, he dragged her, he stomped on her and when the prosecution asked just how frequently he was abusive, she replied, too frequently. She also said that within 6 to 12 months of starting their relationship, he proposed that they do what's called a freak-off, which we spoke about yesterday and that when he did, she said, my stomach fell. She said she felt confused, nervous, but she loved him very much, so she wanted to make him happy and she didn't feel like she had a choice. She said she was worried about what a no would turn into and when she was asked what she meant by that, she said she was worried that he might blackmail her because he had some compromising videos and photos of her or that he might become violent. She later broke down in court, she started crying and she said that these freak-offs just made her feel totally worthless, like she didn't have anything else to offer.
Andy Park: And what do we know about the nature of these so-called freak-offs?
Lauren Day: Well, there was some pretty graphic detail that she revealed in court. She said that they would last on average about 2 to 3 days and she would be awake that whole time from drugs that she said Diddy supplied her. She said they took place in multiple states, at multiple venues and that they would involve around 3 to 4 male sex workers each time and that they would go through on average about 10 bottles of baby oil each time. There are some details that I won't go into because they were pretty troubling, but one thing that Cassie said was that she was always on drugs during these encounters because she found them dissociative and numbing and that she couldn't imagine doing this without a buffer or without something to kind of numb her sensation.
Andy Park: And despite this sort of graphic evidence, there are challenges that the prosecution faces in this case, aren't there?
Lauren Day: Yeah, the main challenge here is that Sean Combs is not on trial for domestic violence or sexual abuse. He's charged with racketeering, conspiracy and sex trafficking. Prosecutors are trying to prove that the women involved in these so-called freak-offs were coerced and forced into this and that it was a coordinated effort by a criminal enterprise that Sean Diddy Combs was at the top of. The defence on the other hand is trying to prove that this was merely consensual adult sexual encounters that may not be everyone's cup of tea, may not be to everyone's sexual preferences, but it's not criminal. And they only need to convince one juror to have some reasonable doubt for this entire case to fall over.
Andy Park: Lauren Day in New York. And if you're in an abusive situation or know someone who is, call 1800RESPECT, that's 1800 737 732 or call 000 in an emergency. A legal loophole that could prevent the Catholic Church from being taken to court over historic child sex crimes should be closed. That's according to victim survivors. A high court decision last year found the Catholic Church wasn't liable for the actions of one paedophile priest because he wasn't an employee. Victoria's State Parliament reporter Richard Willingham has the story.
Richard Willingham: Victorian woman Bernie was abused by a Catholic priest 50 years ago. She hasn't felt safe since.
Bernie: This has never left you for a day. You don't sleep afterwards like a normal human sleeps. You don't, you're not ever carefree again.
Richard Willingham: It wasn't until later in life that Bernie, her sister Trish and two other siblings realised they were all abused in the 1970s by notorious paedophile priest Bryan Coffey. Coffey is long dead and was never convicted of the women's abuse. But after making a formal complaint to the Catholic Church and police, Trish received a letter of apology from the Ballarat Bishop's office in 2015.
Bernie: We wanted someone to say this happened, I suppose.
Richard Willingham: The sisters are finally ready to seek justice through the courts. But a high court decision last year has thrown their legal case and dozens of others into doubt. In November, the court found that the couldn't be held vicariously liable for Coffey's actions in relation to another of his victims because he wasn't an employee.
Bernie: You know, like we've been, we've felt insignificant for most of our lives. They're just doing everything they can to reassure us that we aren't, we're not significant at all. Like, we know that, we've lived like that, but it's really, really shit to do it when they have knowledge that he did this to us.
Richard Willingham: The high court's decision has triggered urgent calls for law reform, with states under pressure to retrospectively legislate for vicarious liability. Victoria's Parliament will debate a private members bill today, put forward by Victorian Legalised Cannabis Party MP Rachel Payne.
Rachel Payne: This is about victims and survivors having opportunity to tell their story, to have their day in court, and an opportunity to heal.
Richard Willingham: There's similar legislation before the New South Wales Parliament.
Judy Courtin: The requirement for legislative reform is urgent.
Richard Willingham: Judy Courtin is Bernie and Trish's lawyer and long-time victim survivor advocate.
Judy Courtin: A lot of our clients and others around the country already have a matter in the courts. We've got trial dates coming up, and if that legislation doesn't come through soon, they're going to lose their trial date and lose their case. Their cases are currently dead in the water.
Richard Willingham: Victorian Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny has met with victim groups and is considering options for reform, but she says it's a complex area and the state's preference is for a national approach.
Sonya Kilkenny: The last thing we want to do is deliver unintended consequences that might do more harm than good.
Richard Willingham: For those most affected, like Bernie and Trish, time is of the essence.
Bernie: It's unfair that every time they find and have a new of, I don't know, a new lawyer finds a new way of doing things, we're the ones that... We're that. We're the consequence of that.
Richard Willingham: The issue has been taken to the Standing Council of Attorneys-General, but no plan of action has been developed.
Andy Park: Richard Willingham, and if you've experienced childhood trauma or abuse, you can call the Blue Knot Helpline on 1300 657 380. Dogs and farms have always gone together, but sniffer dogs are different to sheep dogs. Sniffer dogs patrol airports, police music festivals and even search for lost hikers. But now their noses are being directed to sniff out a problem costing the sheep industry $82 million a year. And it all started with a South Australian Labrador cross called Leeroy, who likes treats. Elsie Adamo prepared this report.
Elsie Adamo: If you're not from a sheep farm, chances are the only thing you know about foot rot is the classic New Zealand comic strip Foot Rot Flats. But while the adventures of Woll and the Dog entertain millions, the disease the comic is named after is a lot less fun.
Chris van Dissel: It basically invades the feet of sheep and goats, starts in the skin in between the toes and then eats away under the hoof. If you imagine a bacteria that eats away under your fingernails.
Elsie Adamo: Chris Van Dissel is the manager of field operations at the South Australian Department of Primary Industries. He is very familiar with how difficult foot rot is to control.
Chris van Dissel: If you think about flocks of 1000 plus sheep, if you miss one, that will carry the infection over to the next year and reinfect all the sheep on your property. So it's not hard to eradicate from one animal. But if you multiply that by thousands, it becomes a pretty difficult process to get rid of it on a property.
Elsie Adamo: The biggest issue with foot rot isn't treating it. It's actually finding it. You can identify by a visual inspection or laboratory testing, but both are labour intensive because you have to manually check every single sheep. What you need is an easy way of sorting through the sheep. South Australian farmer and researcher Dr Colin Earl had an idea.
Dr Colin Earl: Speaking with Jo who's an avid dog trainer and discussing with her, we came up with the idea collectively to try and develop a dog which would be able to identify those few remaining sheep within a flock.
Elsie Adamo: Jo in this case is Joanne Griffiths, a dog trainer who lives near Narracourt in South Eastern South Australia. She's set to work with her Labrador cross Leroy.
Joanne Griffiths: I put my clipping of a rotten foot into a tin that then goes into a sock and I tie that sock to one of the sheep's legs. So it's down by the foot and I then tie a clean sock onto all the other sheep so that he's not going out there just looking for the sock.
Elsie Adamo: You might wonder why use a Labrador instead of a Kelpie or even a Border Collie like the dog from Footrot Flats. Jo Griffiths says it all comes down to motivation.
Joanne Griffiths: People often ask me why didn't you use a Kelpie because the way I teach, I teach with reinforcement. So I teach the dog what I want it to do and when it does it or at least part of it, I reinforce. And eLeroy loves food because he's a Lab or mostly Lab, whereas a Kelpie would want to work the sheep.
Elsie Adamo: With the initial training out of the way, Leeroy's performance has been impressive. So much so that the state's peak body, Livestock SA, has even jumped on board. Jo Griffiths says now that they've proven Leroy can do it, the next step is to get him out on a real farm.
Joanne Griffiths: The next sort of stage is, as I say, getting him used to actually going on to different properties, being around different people. He's not too bad at that so far. And then I think I'll probably be going out with some of the vets that are working on eradication programs so that he's around all of that stuff going on. And then we'll start sort of trialling him out there and see how he goes.
Elsie Adamo: Leeroy's on the road to proving once more why dogs are man's best friend.
Andy Park: That report by Elsie Adamo. And that's all from the World Today team. Thanks for your company. I'm Andy Park.