The Fair Work Commission’s 3.75 per cent increase in minimum award wages is a typical split-the-difference between the union and employer members of the industrial relations club. Yet, the most notable part of the decision delivered by FWC president Adam Hatcher is the admission that the tribunal cannot do much about the fall in the real value of award wages over the past five years when labour productivity is no higher than it was four years ago.

In the past three years, the FWC has ratcheted up what is close to the world’s highest minimum wage floor by more than 14 per cent. Yet, that has not caught up with the growth in consumer prices since the pandemic.