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Speaker 1: It's Friday, the seventeenth of May twenty twenty four. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to the Fast five Business News by Fear and Greed,

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Speaker 1: where we give you the top five business stories you

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Speaker 1: need to know in five minutes. I'm Michael Thompson and

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Speaker 1: good morning Sean Aylmer. Good morning, Michael, Sean. Five stories,

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Speaker 1: five minutes. Let's go. Story number one. The unemployment rate

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Speaker 1: jumped to four point one percent last month following a

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Speaker 1: surge in people looking for work.

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Speaker 2: The unemployment rate was a surprise given the number of

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Speaker 2: people employed grew by almost thirty nine thousand. According to

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Speaker 2: the Bureau Statistics. Both the growth of employment and the

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Speaker 2: unemployment rate were higher than economists expected. The March number

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Speaker 2: was also revised upwards. The two months demonstrate that the

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Speaker 2: data jumps around a fair bit. The message in all

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Speaker 2: this is that the trend is your friend, and definitely

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Speaker 2: the unemployment rate is trending higher. Isn't really a surprise.

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Speaker 2: In fact, what has caught the government the Reserve Bank

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Speaker 2: kind of wares is how well the labor market has done.

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Speaker 2: Of course, that helped the government delivery budget surplus, which

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Speaker 2: we heard about this week. April's employment gains were driven

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Speaker 2: by a forty four thy six hundred increase in part

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Speaker 2: time workers, slightly offset by a sixty one hundred drop

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Speaker 2: in full time employment. The high migration rates pushed the

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Speaker 2: participation rate to a near record high of sixty six

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Speaker 2: point seven percent.

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Speaker 1: Sean, just quickly. It's been quite a week, hasn't it.

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Speaker 1: In the economics world, we had the federal budget which

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Speaker 1: was slightly inflationary, though the CPI rate will fall later

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Speaker 1: in the year. We had yesterday's labor force figures that

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Speaker 1: you just went through. We also had US inflation figures

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Speaker 1: come in lower than expected. What does it all mean

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Speaker 1: where do we stand on interest rates?

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Speaker 2: Well, financial markets, following everything that's happened in the past

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Speaker 2: two or three days, have no longer priced in any

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Speaker 2: chance of a rate high here in Australia. The next move,

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Speaker 2: according to traders, will be down. Could happen by the

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Speaker 2: end of the year. In fake bond trade is a

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Speaker 2: priced and a fifty percent chance of that happening. Everything

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Speaker 2: that happened over the past twenty four hours, it sent

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Speaker 2: the sheer market up nearly two percent. That's not that

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Speaker 2: far off a record high here in Australia. The Aussie

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Speaker 2: dollar jumped up to it was trading just under sixty

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Speaker 2: seven US cents. Very big twenty four hour or so

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Speaker 2: for markets.

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Speaker 1: Certainly was on to story number two now and the

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Speaker 1: Reserve Bank expects house prices and rents to keep rising

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Speaker 1: for some time, saying a perfect storm has prevented the

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Speaker 1: construction industry from building more homes, even though there is

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Speaker 1: plenty of demand spurred on by migration and working from home.

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Speaker 2: Reserve Bank Chief economist Sarah Hunter said there's no quick

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Speaker 2: fix for Australia's housing market ways as developers defer projects

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Speaker 2: due to high costs. Pretty simple really supply and demand

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Speaker 2: plenty of the ladder, not enough for the former. Normally

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Speaker 2: high demand will trigger a jumping instruction, but a few

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Speaker 2: things have gotten in the way of the past couple

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Speaker 2: of years. Doctor Harter said the industry was already struggling

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Speaker 2: to get through its pipeline of residential projects that commenced

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Speaker 2: during the pandemic on the back of the home builder

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Speaker 2: project finishing trades are in short supply and the cost

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Speaker 2: of building a new home is up forty percent since

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Speaker 2: twenty nineteen. That's caused some developers and investors to delay

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Speaker 2: or scrap projects because they're no longer economic. She added

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Speaker 2: that supply and demand, much more so than interst rates,

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Speaker 2: determined how many as were built.

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Speaker 1: Story number three. The Government and the Greens have agreed

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Speaker 1: to pass a slew of legislation, including changes to the

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Speaker 1: petroleum Resource rent tax before Parliament rises for the end

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Speaker 1: of budget week.

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Speaker 2: Vehicle emission standards, changes, new offshore gas approval rules and

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Speaker 2: changes semming from the PwC tax leakeds scandal will pass

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Speaker 2: the Senate. As part of the deal, Labour has agreed

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Speaker 2: to carve out proposed new powers for the Resources Minister

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Speaker 2: to set rules related to offshore gas production. Also yesterday,

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Speaker 2: Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi criticized backbench Labour Senator Fatom of

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Speaker 2: payment after she recited the from the River to the

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Speaker 2: Sea slogan, which is being condemned as anti Semitic. The

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Speaker 2: government was forced to back a coalition Senate motion that

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Speaker 2: implicitly criticized Senator payment by calling on the senators to

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Speaker 2: refrain from inflammatory and divisive comments Senator payment. Of course,

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Speaker 2: she sparked a fracture within Labor over the Middle East

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Speaker 2: War by accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza on Wednesday.

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Speaker 1: Seawan story number four. Former Prime Minister Scot Morrison and

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Speaker 1: presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump are somewhat unlikely bad fellows,

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Speaker 1: but they certainly are close, aren't they. With a former

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Speaker 1: prime minister visiting mister Trump in New York and calling

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Speaker 1: the current legal battles involving him a pylon.

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Speaker 2: Mister Morrison met mister Trump and his private residence and

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Speaker 2: afterwards said America's legal system risks damaging its reputation and

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Speaker 2: being viewed as similar to those in developing countries that

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Speaker 2: are politically compromised. Mister Trump is leading Democrat President Jane

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Speaker 2: Biden in the polls, but he faces more than ninety

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Speaker 2: criminal charges across four separate cases, mister Morrison said. Mister

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Speaker 2: Trump indicated support for the Orchest submarine deal during the meeting.

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Speaker 2: The former Prime Minister is in the US launching his

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Speaker 2: book Plans for Your Good at Prime Minister's Testimony of

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Speaker 2: God's Faithfulness, with guests that include mister Trump's former Vice

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Speaker 2: president Mike Pence, and former Secretary of State Like Pompeo.

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Speaker 1: Last one, Story number five, how about gaming machine maker

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Speaker 1: Aristocrat Leisure? Yesterday? What a day at share price twelve

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Speaker 1: percent after a big increase in net profit.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it's net profit was up sixteen percent, meant a

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Speaker 2: high dividend, a boost for its share buyback program. Fascinating.

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Speaker 2: Company's got three arms. Traditional gaming machines what you find

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Speaker 2: in pubs, clubs and casinos, online, social online, real money gaming.

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Speaker 2: Aristocrats doing well in the US slot machine market, whereby

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Speaker 2: it effectively rents out the machines and takes a cut

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Speaker 2: of the money put through them. Particularly successful has been

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Speaker 2: the recent launch of six NFL branded machines that's making

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Speaker 2: him a lot of money. In the social gaming division,

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Speaker 2: which is called Pixel United, a seventeen percent increase in

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Speaker 2: profit was driven by growth in Aristocrats market share in

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Speaker 2: social Also a role playing video game called Raid Shadow

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Speaker 2: Legends very popular amongst gamers.

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Speaker 1: All right, now we go to the top five business

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Speaker 1: stories in five minutes. Thank you Sean, Thank you Michael.

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Speaker 1: It's Friday, the seventeenth of May twenty twenty four. Remember

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Speaker 1: to hit follow on the podcast five minutes sasn't enough.

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Speaker 1: You can find our longer daily show called Fear and

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Speaker 1: Greed wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Michael Thompson, and

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Speaker 1: that was the past. By Business News, by fear and greed,

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Speaker 1: Have a great day.