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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 Almer. Hello Michael Sean. On weekdays, it's all about

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Speaker 1: the Fast five, the top five business stories you need

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Speaker 1: to know in just five minutes. On the weekend, though

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Speaker 1: we still keep it to five minutes of course, but

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Speaker 1: where you're going to pick out the biggest story of

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Speaker 1: the week, the most remarkable business story, a sleeper story,

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Speaker 1: one that's kind of flying under the radar a little bit,

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Speaker 1: and then our favorite business story. Let's jump into it.

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Speaker 1: What was the biggest story this week?

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Speaker 2: Oh, no doubt. For me, it was the fact that

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Speaker 2: the Federal Reserve and the US cut interest rates by

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Speaker 2: fifty bases points. Finally, Ala Lujah had huge impact on

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Speaker 2: financial markets around the world. Let's just take the local markets.

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Speaker 2: The smpasx two hundred as a result, hit a record

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Speaker 2: four days in a row. That's in the build up

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Speaker 2: and when it actually happened, the Aussie dollar hop back

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Speaker 2: above sixty eight US sin. It spen a couple of

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Speaker 2: years since the currency has stayed above that level for

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Speaker 2: a period. Gold prices hit a new record. Think they

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Speaker 2: touched twenty six hundred US dollars and our all in all,

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Speaker 2: people think that the US is heading for a soft landing,

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Speaker 2: not a hard landing. Put a lot more confidence into

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Speaker 2: investing markets.

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Speaker 1: What about you, Michael, That is absolutely the biggest business

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Speaker 1: story of the week. Sean, I completely agree with you.

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Speaker 1: The other thing that happened kind of locally was the

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Speaker 1: jobless figures, the labor force numbers that showed forty seven

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Speaker 1: and a half thousand jobs were created last month, higher

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Speaker 1: than expected. Unemployment rate those days the same at four

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Speaker 1: point two percent. A lot of those jobs were part time. Really,

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Speaker 1: it's not going to kind of sway the Reserve Bank

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Speaker 1: either way. When the Reserve Bank Board meets in two days,

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to calculate now, because it meets on Monday

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Speaker 1: and Tuesday. Now, so you know what when it meets

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Speaker 1: in coming days, let's just say that.

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Speaker 2: Sean, Yeah, I think that's right.

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Speaker 1: Okay, most remarkable story? Can I nominate one for this one?

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Speaker 2: Sure? I think it's pretty.

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Speaker 1: Remarkable the way the federal government has managed to pick

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Speaker 1: fights with pretty much everyone. It's a war with the

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Speaker 1: unions at the moment over the forced administration of the CFAU,

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Speaker 1: it's battling the business community over industrial relations reform and

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Speaker 1: a bunch of other stuff. Both of these fights kind

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Speaker 1: of came to a head a bit this week. The

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Speaker 1: CFAIR MEU had sixty thousand construction workers at an unauthorized rally,

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Speaker 1: a very very colorful one at that. The unions are

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Speaker 1: really threatening to take labor on head on and try

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Speaker 1: and turf them out of office at the next election. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: the government is battling the business community, though they say

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Speaker 1: they are not. We had Prime Minister Anthony Albernezi at

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Speaker 1: a Business Council of Australia dinner through the week basically

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Speaker 1: saying that everything the business wants in terms of kind

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Speaker 1: of the housing, cost of living, the care economy, net

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Speaker 1: zero and skills these are all issues that are being

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Speaker 1: addressed by the government. What it means, though, is we're

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Speaker 1: heading into an election at some time in the next

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Speaker 1: kind of six seven, eight months or so, with the

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Speaker 1: government fighting its traditional allies, the unions, it's traditional enemies,

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Speaker 1: big business, and actually probably some fights within labor itself.

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Speaker 1: They've got battles on all fronts.

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Speaker 2: They sure do. Just A quick mention of my most

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Speaker 2: remarkable story it's how much domestic economy. Airfairs have risen

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Speaker 2: since the demise of rex and before that bondser In fact,

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Speaker 2: they are up twelve percent in just a couple of months.

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Speaker 2: That's according to the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics. Overall,

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Speaker 2: airfas are actually a bit lower than the long term average.

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Speaker 2: But the fact that they've risen twelve percent in three months,

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Speaker 2: and realize that that's forty eight percent, I think that's

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Speaker 2: quite incredible and just shows how important competition is in

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Speaker 2: all markets, but particularly in the airlines market if we

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Speaker 2: want to keep fares down.

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Speaker 1: Sean sleeper story of the week. A couple of quick

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Speaker 1: entries for this one. What I do you like?

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Speaker 2: I like the fact that we did an FTA with

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Speaker 2: the United Arab Emirates this week. The UAE not a

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Speaker 2: huge trading partner, our biggest in the Middle East, but

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Speaker 2: what it is. It just shows how many free trade

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Speaker 2: agreements or competition deals we are doing with other countries.

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Speaker 2: In fact, we've got nineteen at the moment, Chile, India,

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Speaker 2: New Zealand, uk US, Hong Kong. It goes on, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Peru,

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Speaker 2: What these deals do is they allow a much freer

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Speaker 2: trade flow, but they also give local companies access to

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Speaker 2: being done by some of these other countries. So the

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Speaker 2: United Arab Emirates, they've got a thirty billion US dollar

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Speaker 2: fund which they want to invest in future minerals, green

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Speaker 2: minerals that could help Australian companies. I like all these

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Speaker 2: little free trade deals. They do make Australia more competitive.

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Speaker 2: What about you?

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Speaker 1: Very quickly my sleeper story, it's not even really that

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Speaker 1: much of a sleeper story, is it. But this week

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Speaker 1: we had the Roy Morgan Trust survey come out and

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Speaker 1: at the top of the list was Bunnings. Aldi came

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Speaker 1: out and it's kind of to be expected. But what's

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Speaker 1: most interesting is you go down to the most distrusted

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Speaker 1: brands and they're Coals and Woolies. This time last year

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Speaker 1: they are at the top of the list, up next

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Speaker 1: to kind of Bunnings as most trusted. Now they are

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Speaker 1: down there with some of the most distrusted brands, and

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Speaker 1: Roy Morgan kind of they single them out as being

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Speaker 1: associated with price gouging, high profits and corporate greed. What

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Speaker 1: I think this crystallizes this week is the challenge ahead

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Speaker 1: of coals and woolies to really restore some of that

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Speaker 1: trust and maybe maybe we're going to see some big

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Speaker 1: marketing campaigns and a really big push to do that.

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Speaker 2: Sean, Yeah, makes for a very interesting board meeting. I

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Speaker 2: can't just tell my favorite story the week quickly. It

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Speaker 2: comes from minor Rio Tinto, one of Australia's biggest company,

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Speaker 2: biggest carbon emitters, in an effort to reduce its carbon footprint,

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Speaker 2: It's brought three thousand hectares of grazing land near Townsville

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Speaker 2: and Queensland. It's going to plant seven hundred and fifty

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Speaker 2: thousand Pongarmia trees. They're native to the north of Australia

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Speaker 2: and Southeast Asia. What they do they'll refine the pondarmia

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Speaker 2: oil into a form of renewable diesel that in theory

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Speaker 2: will power rios, trucks and generators. Like traditional fuels made

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Speaker 2: with oil extracted from underground rocks, biofuels release carbon into

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Speaker 2: the atmosphere when burned, but they're considered neutral for the

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Speaker 2: climate because the carbon in biofuels originally was sucked out

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Speaker 2: of the atmosphere for the tree. So the burning of

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Speaker 2: biofuels doesn't release any additional carbon fascinating little story.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, certainly is my favorite story, and it's just really

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Speaker 1: a sorry that I just want to mention. Is all

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Speaker 1: this talk that perhaps this was the week where the

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Speaker 1: work from home revolution ended because we had Amazon CEO

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Speaker 1: Andy Jasse ordering Amazon staff back to the office full

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Speaker 1: time from next year. It's a company with around one

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Speaker 1: and a half million employees, three hundred thousand of which

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Speaker 1: are corporate workers. That's a big, big shift to get

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Speaker 1: everyone back into the office. And locally, we had tab

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Speaker 1: Corp with newboss s Gilla McLaughlin saying that in order

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Speaker 1: to reset the business, he was going to get everyone

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Speaker 1: back into the office, a thousand workers back into the office.

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Speaker 1: We've had other kind of businesses making similar decisions, state

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Speaker 1: governments and the like. Maybe maybe the tide has now

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Speaker 1: turned on work from home.

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Speaker 2: Sean, Maybe, Michael, maybe maybe.

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Speaker 1: Very mysterious way to finish there we go five minutes

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Speaker 1: and pretty much everything you need to know in the

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Speaker 1: 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 hit follow

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Speaker 1: and join us online on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook and

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Speaker 1: X Michael Thompson And this is the Fast five Business

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Speaker 1: news by Fear and Greet