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Speaker 1: Welcome to the weekend edition of The Fast Five. Business

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Speaker 1: News by Fear and Greed. Are Michael Thompson and Hello

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Speaker 1: Sean Ailmer.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Michael Sean.

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Speaker 1: On weekdays, it's all about the Fast Five, the top

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Speaker 1: five business stories in five minutes. On the weekend, we

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Speaker 1: still keep it to five minutes, but we are picking

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Speaker 1: out the biggest business story of the week, the most

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Speaker 1: remarkable story, a sleeper story, one that's flying under the radar,

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Speaker 1: and our favorite business story. What was the biggest story

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Speaker 1: this week?

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Speaker 2: For me, it was the economy. The Reserve Bank this

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Speaker 2: week sounded decidedly hawkish or less optimistic about getting inflation

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Speaker 2: lower given current policy settings. Interest rates, yet they're not

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Speaker 2: going to come down anytime soon. We found out this

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Speaker 2: week the Reserve Bank is still worried about the labor

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Speaker 2: market being too tight. They're a little bit worried about

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Speaker 2: expansionary budgets, not just in Camera but in the States

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Speaker 2: as well, worried about lack of productivity growth, Worried about inflation,

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Speaker 2: particularly services inflation. The Reserve Bank Board even talked about

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Speaker 2: interest rates rising, yet they didn't talk about cutting rates.

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Speaker 2: That hit the bond mark at the Aussie dollar jumped

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Speaker 2: above or almost two sixty seven US cents, hasn't been

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Speaker 2: there for about six months. The reserve being board meeting

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Speaker 2: for me and the fact that it suggests that there

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Speaker 2: won't be any rate cut until early next year. Biggest

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Speaker 2: story of the week, Michael.

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Speaker 1: It is a very big one for me. The big

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Speaker 1: story this week was all about nuclear power and oppositionally

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Speaker 1: to Peter Dutton has outlined the coalition policy for five

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Speaker 1: large scale nuclear power plants, two small modulate reactors, all

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Speaker 1: in operation by twenty fifty the first by twenty thirty five.

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Speaker 1: These are insights all around the country. They're going to

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Speaker 1: be part of the energy mix with renewables and gas.

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Speaker 1: The cost those details are apparently going to come later,

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Speaker 1: but the CSIRO did point out last month that the

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Speaker 1: first nuclear plant could cost as much as seventeen billion dollars.

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Speaker 1: The funny thing about all of this, Sean, is the

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Speaker 1: fact that the week started with Peter Dutton the polse

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Speaker 1: showing that he's actually in with a chance at the

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Speaker 1: next election. And what he's done here though then is

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Speaker 1: picked possibly the most controversial issue imaginable and chosen to

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Speaker 1: fight the election on that It could be a very

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Speaker 1: kind of bold career. We just kind of moved. The

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Speaker 1: party room certainly supported him in that. What is particularly interesting, Sean,

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Speaker 1: is that we are going to have a debate now

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Speaker 1: in this country. We're going to have an election campaign

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Speaker 1: fought over this issue. It puts nuclear on the table.

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Speaker 1: The people will decide. I think that's a good thing.

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Speaker 1: It's a big story this week.

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Speaker 2: Sure is, Michael. What about your most remarkable story?

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Speaker 1: Well, look, I think again, kind of from the politics space,

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Speaker 1: what was remarkable was what happened this week with China

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Speaker 1: and Australia, and it happened here in Australia. Chinese Premier

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Speaker 1: League Chung held talks with Prime Minister Anthony Alberizi, candid talks.

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Speaker 1: They covered a whole lot of different issues. A lot

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Speaker 1: of good came out of it. He had streamlined visa

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Speaker 1: access between Australia and China, strengthening free trade, restoring all

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Speaker 1: avenues of government to government dialogue, which is pretty impressive

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Speaker 1: when you think how bad it actually was just a

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Speaker 1: couple of years ago, when phone calls between ministers wouldn't

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Speaker 1: actually be answered. There was kind of graine diplomacy. The

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Speaker 1: Chinese premier visiting penfolds. One thing though that I really

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Speaker 1: kind of stood out for me though, was a demonstration

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Speaker 1: of where there our differences are still pronounced. We had

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Speaker 1: Australian journalist Chung Lai who was detained for three years

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Speaker 1: in China on national security grounds. She was at the

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Speaker 1: press conference held by the leaders and Chinese officials attempted

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Speaker 1: to block her from view. It was so bad the

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Speaker 1: federal government lodged a protest with the Chinese embassy the

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Speaker 1: following day. Just remarkable that we can have so much

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Speaker 1: progress in a few days and yet there are attempts

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Speaker 1: on Australian soil essentially to stifle the freedom of the press.

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Speaker 1: Remarkable story.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I just got to quickly mention Nvidia this week,

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Speaker 2: the chip maker basically makes the brains for artificial intelligence.

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Speaker 2: It reached a value of three point four trillion US dollars,

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Speaker 2: the biggest company in the world that I ever took

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Speaker 2: Microsoft and Apple over the past couple of weeks, stocks

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Speaker 2: up more than ten percent in the past five days,

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Speaker 2: forty percent in the past month, five hundred and ninety

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Speaker 2: one thousand percent since it listed in nineteen ninety nine.

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Speaker 2: In fact, if you put one thousand bucks in in

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine and then video shares you have about

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Speaker 2: about a million dollars. Now quite incredible. Wall Street has

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Speaker 2: a new king.

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Speaker 1: That is an amazing story. Look sleeper story. One flying

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Speaker 1: under the radar a little bit. I want to talk

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Speaker 1: about buying now, pay later big business in Australia. It's

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Speaker 1: worth about twenty billion dollars a year.

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Speaker 2: At the moment.

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Speaker 1: Operators like after pay and zip charge retailers are fee

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Speaker 1: about three and a half percent. Retailers can't pass that

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Speaker 1: directly onto the customer the same way that they do

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Speaker 1: debit cards and credit card search charges. The Reserve bankers

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Speaker 1: signaled regulation of the sector, and one of those things

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Speaker 1: is probably going to be allowing retailers to directly pass

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Speaker 1: on those charges. This could fundamentally change the buying.

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Speaker 2: Our pay later sector in the future. One sleeper story,

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Speaker 2: which is kind of a sleeper story. I just didn't

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Speaker 2: realize how little federal politicians got paid. The Prime Minister

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Speaker 2: earned six hundred and seven thousand dollars a year. He's

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Speaker 2: the guy that works for him, the head of the

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Speaker 2: Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. And it's more than

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Speaker 2: a million bucks from Quari Group, Shamara Wickremeni Yaka. She's

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Speaker 2: closer to thirty million bucks. Police just aren't paid very much.

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Speaker 2: As a result, it's sometimes hard to attract good quality

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Speaker 2: candidates if the money's not there. I just think it's

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Speaker 2: something we should think a little bit harder about.

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Speaker 1: Michael, Yeah, that's a good one. What about your Faithavorite story.

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Speaker 2: Sean comes from the Consumer Group Choice. The federal government's

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Speaker 2: funding them to do quarterly shopping reviews. They did one

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Speaker 2: announced that this week, basically Aldi can save customers about

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Speaker 2: twenty five percent. Now, this was based on a basket

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Speaker 2: of fourteen commonly bought goods milk, bread, sugar, pasta, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: Aldi came out on top. Woolies and Coals with twenty

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Speaker 2: five percent. More expensive IJ was also in there, though

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Speaker 2: the data on that was pretty sparse. What I like

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Speaker 2: about it is not just the findings, but it will

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Speaker 2: also put pressure on Woolies and Coals to do a

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Speaker 2: better job to help ossies who are buying their groceries

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Speaker 2: stuff from cost of living pressures. I like that there's

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Speaker 2: this transparency in the cost of groceries, be it at Aldi, Woollies, Coals,

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Speaker 2: or IgA. I just love that story. This week.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, another good one, Sean is about Mexican restaurant chain

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Speaker 1: Gouz whin He Gomez hit the ASX this week and

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Speaker 1: it just took off. IPO price was twenty two dollars.

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Speaker 1: It went straight to thirty bucks a share and that's

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Speaker 1: where it closed at the end of day one. What

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Speaker 1: a first day. It took the market cap of the

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Speaker 1: business to more than three billion dollars, the biggest IPO

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Speaker 1: in years. And maybe there's a bit of talk that

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Speaker 1: this might just bring a little bit of excitement back

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Speaker 1: to the market and might encourage a few more companies

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Speaker 1: to also list. I just think it's a really good

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Speaker 1: business success story.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that.

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Speaker 1: All Right, there we go five minutes and pretty much

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Speaker 1: everything you need to know in the world of business.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Sean, Thank you Michael.

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Speaker 1: We'll be back on Monday morning with the top five

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Speaker 1: business stories in five minutes. Don't forget to follow join

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Speaker 1: us online on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook and X. I'm

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Speaker 1: Michael Thompson and there's the Fast five Business news by

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Speaker 2: Beer and Greet