Wednesday, 3 June - Better the devil you know

June 03, 2026

Good morning, it’s Wednesday, 3 June. In your Squiz Today…

  • Millions of Aussie workers are set for a pay rise after a minimum wage increase

  • Tech company Anthropic is set to go public

  • And there’s a missing Tassie devil on the Gold Coast…

🎧 Listen to the podcast

🤓 This email will take you 5 minutes to read

🙋🏻‍♀️ This newsletter was written by Andrew Williams, Alice Dempster, Larissa Huntington, Anna Pykett and Sophie Felice

Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

“What happened to the testicles?”

Said one online commenter after a bull mosaic in Milan got a revamp, which temporarily removed a fairly, um, prominent part of its anatomy. It was damaged from people stamping on that area, which was said to bring prosperity - maybe don’t try that with a real bull…

A wage lift for workers

The Squiz

Millions of Aussies are in for a pay rise in a few weeks, after the Fair Work Commission (FWC) signed off yesterday on lifting the minimum wage by 6% and award wages by 4.75%. It means nearly 2.8 million people (about 21% of the workforce) will get a pay bump from 1 July to help them cope with the rising cost of living. Those on the minimum wage (about 100,000 workers) will pocket an extra $56.90 a week, based on a full-time 38-hour week - pushing their pay packet over $1,000 a week for the first time.

Why is it happening now?

The FWC - which is independent - makes a call on the minimum wage every year after hearing from the government, unions and businesses. FWC President Justice Adam Hatcher says the decision was “particularly challenging” due to rising oil prices and inflation pressures, but it was made “to protect the position” of the lowest-paid workers, whose wages hadn’t kept up with inflation after the pandemic. That’s one reason why this year’s hike is higher than the current inflation rate of 4.2%. But as Hatcher flagged, adding to inflation is also a concern - 4.2% is above the Reserve Bank’s target range of 2-3%, and some economists are concerned the wage rise could make the problem worse.

Why’s that?

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s David Alexander says the extra costs “will be too much to bear” for some businesses and they’ll be passed on to customers - which could boost inflation. The Coalition said they’d back the rise - though they blamed the government’s spending for the need for one in the first place. Treasurer Jim Chalmers called it the “pay rise millions of Australian workers need and deserve” - Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus would have preferred it to be higher, but she said it’ll help lower-paid workers survive, while boosting local businesses. As for whether the mooted impact on inflation will affect the Reserve Bank’s thinking on interest rates, we’ll find out when it next meets on 15/16 June… 

Doing the energy maths

With the cost of living on the rise, more households are moving from thinking about solar and batteries to actually doing something about it... New lending data from CommBank (which you can find here) shows finance for solar and battery installations rose 35% in the March quarter, and households installed as many home batteries in the 6 months to the end of 2025 as they did across the previous 5 years - so energy costs have been front of mind for many...

Squiz the Rest

An escalation in Ukraine

At least 22 people have been killed in Ukraine over the last day, after Russia launched one of its most significant attacks in months. The strikes hit the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv (the capital) and Dnipro, and an 8yo boy is among the dead. Russia says it’s a response to a Ukrainian strike in late May, and it’s planning to launch similar strikes in the future. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has asked the US for more Patriot missiles to defend itself - they’re the ones that the US stopped selling directly to Ukraine after US President Donald Trump came to power last year. Ukraine’s European allies have been buying them instead and selling them on, but they’ve been in short supply recently, especially after the US began its war on Iran in February. There’s been no response from the US yet…

A race against time

Rescuers searching for 2 villagers trapped inside a flooded cave in Laos since 20 May are now trying to reach them through vertical shafts found on the hill above. Five men were freed over the weekend after rescuers pumped water from the cave, allowing the villagers to get out. They drew a map, showing a large air chamber where their friends could be stuck, but heavy rains have since flooded the way again. Of the vertical shafts, several have led to blocked tunnels, but rescuers say there are more to try. Aussie cave diver Josh Richards is in the rescue team, along with Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, who helped in the incredible rescue of a young soccer team from a cave in Thailand in 2018. While there are no more signs of life, Paasi said the team are “not giving up while we're here”. 

Anthropic to float on AI-r

The artificial intelligence company behind the Claude chatbot is preparing to go public on Wall Street. It’s filed plans for what’s called an Initial Public Offering - that’s the process where private companies get ready to sell shares to people who want to invest in them… and it’s not alone. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has already made its move, and OpenAI - the company behind ChatGPT - is rumoured to be getting ready to do the same. Experts see it as a litmus test of whether interest from investors will match the skyrocketing valuations of AI companies, and some reckon all 3 firms could smash records. One research analyst says Anthropic's IPO “will be the most scrutinised public offering in tech history” - so no pressure, then…

Rewrite the Stars

You don’t get that much cricket news in June, but there’s a big change in the works for the Big Bash League - the Australian short-form (Twenty20) competition. For the last 15 seasons, there have been 2 Melbourne clubs in the Big Bash - the Stars (who wear green) and the Renegades (who wear red). But yesterday, Cricket Victoria reportedly told its staff that the 2 teams will be merged into one - meaning the teams and identities fans have followed for years will no longer exist. Instead, one of those licences will likely be sold off to a private investor - the remaining one will still be known as Melbourne, wear navy blue and possibly be nicknamed the Bushrangers. No news on whether they’ll be wearing these sorts of helmets…

Where the devil is Mary?

The search is on for a young Tasmanian Devil who went missing from the Paradise Country theme park on the Gold Coast yesterday. Mary - who shares the name of the Tassie-born queen of Denmark - was one of 2 recent additions to the popular park in the suburb of Oxenford, but staff clocked her missing from her secure indoor enclosure after a morning check. The park was shut and searched - and overnight, thermal imaging equipment was put to use, given devils are most active in the dark. A spokesperson for Village Roadshow Theme Parks said the enclosure wasn’t damaged and there’s no sign of how Mary escaped, adding “incidents of this nature are extremely rare”. Maybe check the Prada store - we hear devils like wearing it…

Apropos of Nothing

A robotic falcon drone is saving strawberry farmers heaps of cash by scaring off hungry lorikeets and cockatoos that eat their crops. RoBird is launched into the air from someone’s forearms, much like an actual falcon, only less deadly…

Taylor Swift has revealed she will release a new song later in the week for the Toy Story 5 soundtrack… The song I Knew It, I Knew You is being labelled by Disney as the star’s return to her country roots. To the charts and beyond…

You might’ve heard that singer/book podcaster Dua Lipa married actor Callum Turner on the weekend. Lipa says they were at a restaurant when they realised they’d both just finished the same chapter in a novel. Turner then clinched it with: “So, we’re on the same page” - smooth… 

Squiz the Day

08.00am (AEST) - Federal Independent MPs Zali Steggall, Sophie Scamps and Kate Chaney to attend the inaugural Unpackit Awards, which show off the best and worst of Oz packaging - Canberra

08.30am (AEST) - Gas Energy Australia National Forum - Sydney

09.00am (AEST) - Senate Estimates hearings for the 2026/27 Federal Budget - Canberra

10.00am (AEST) - Federal Parliament sits (House of Reps) - Canberra

10.00am (AEST) - CSIRO to appear at Solar panel reuse and recycling Inquiry - Canberra

12.00pm (AEST) - Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff to deliver the annual State of the State address - Hobart

12.30pm (AEST) - Michael Wright, Secretary of the Electrical Trades Union of Australia & Alison Pennington, Chief Economist at the McKell Institute to address the National Press Club on 'Powering Australia’s Future' - Canberra

Mabo Day

Hockey: NHL finals begin (until 17 June) - check out our recent Squiz Shortcut on ice hockey for all the background and the Heated Rivalry connection…

ABS data release: National income, expenditure and product, March 2026

Sydney Film Festival begins (until 14 June)

World Cider Day

A birthday for tennis legend Rafael Nadal (1986)

Anniversary of:

  • Aretha Franklin’s Respect reaching #1 (1967)

  • the London Bridge terror attack (2017)

  • the death of ‘The Greatest’ Muhammad Ali (2016)