Upcoming wages and unemployment data may have significant bearing on the Reserve Bank’s closely watched interest rate decision.

Domestic signals have taken somewhat of a back seat since US President Donald Trump’s tariff dump in early April.

But the wage price index and labour force figures, due to be published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, will be closely monitored.

They are the last remaining major data releases that will influence the Reserve Bank board’s decision when it meets to set interest rates on May 19-20.

Expectations of a rate cut have soared since Mr Trump’s tariffs roiled markets.

With global trade set to be impacted, the economic growth outlook for Australia and the rest of the world has tumbled, while cheap goods diverted to the local market could drive domestic inflation down further.

The rates market has fully priced in a 25-basis point cut for May, with traders rating a bumper 50-basis point cut at more than even odds.

At the previous board meeting on April 1, Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock noted the labour market was still tight, which could make it harder to get inflation back down.

“There are some risks on the upside and the labour market is one of them,” she said at the time.

“Not everyone agrees, but we still think there’s tightness in the labour market.”

Ms Bullock flagged the board would keep an eye on labour market data to help guide its rates decision.

In ABS data released later in April, unemployment edged slightly higher to 4.1 per cent in March.

ANZ Bank economists expect the jobless rate to climb to 4.2 per cent on Thursday, in line with the Reserve Bank’s forecast of 4.2 per cent from its February statement on monetary policy.

But the outlook for unemployment has since worsened.

The International Monetary Fund now predicts Australia’s unemployment rate to climb to 4.5 per cent by 2026, because economic growth is expected to be slower than previously assumed.

The British government plans to restrict skilled worker visas to graduate-level jobs and force businesses to increase training for local workers.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under pressure to cut net migration after the success of Nigel Farage’s right-wing, anti-immigration Reform UK party in local elections in May.

Under the government’s new plans, skilled visas will only be granted to people in graduate jobs, while visas for lower-skilled roles will only be issued in areas critical to the nation’s industrial strategy, and in return businesses must increase training of British workers.

The Labour government said the changes will be part of a policy document, known as a white paper, to be published on Monday setting out how ministers plan to reduce immigration.

High levels of legal migration were one of the major drivers behind the vote to leave the European Union in 2016 with voters unhappy about the free movement of workers across the bloc.

After Britain eventually left the EU in 2020, the then Conservative government reduced the threshold to allow workers in categories such as yoga teachers, dog walkers and DJs to be eligible for skilled worker visas.

“We inherited a failed immigration system where the previous government replaced free movement with a free market experiment,” Yvette Cooper, the British interior minister, said in a statement. 

“We are taking decisive action to restore control and order to the immigration system.”

While post-Brexit changes to visas led to a sharp drop in the number of EU migrants to Britain, new work visa rules and people arriving from Ukraine and Hong Kong under special visa schemes led to a surge in immigration.

Net migration, or the number of people coming to Britain minus the number leaving, rose to a record 906,000 people in the year to June 2023, up from the 184,000 people who arrived in the same period during 2019, when Britain was still in the EU.

US President Donald Trump has hailed talks with China in Switzerland, saying the two sides had negotiated “a total reset … in a friendly, but constructive, manner”.

“A very good meeting today with China, in Switzerland. Many things discussed, much agreed to,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

“We want to see, for the good of both China and the US, an opening up of China to American business. GREAT PROGRESS MADE!!!” He did not elaborate on the progress.

Earlier, top US and Chinese officials wrapped up the first day of talks in Geneva aimed at defusing a trade war that threatens to hammer the global economy and planned to resume negotiations on Sunday, a source close to the discussions said.

Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng met for about eight hours with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in their first face-to-face meeting since the world’s two largest economies heaped tariffs well above 100 per cent on each other’s goods.

Neither side made any statements afterwards about the substance of the discussions nor signalled any specific progress towards reducing crushing tariffs as meetings at the residence of Switzerland’s ambassador to the UN concluded at about 8pm local time on Saturday (4am Sunday AEST).

Bessent, Greer and He were meeting in Geneva after weeks of growing tensions prompted by Trump’s tariff blitz starting in February and retaliation from Beijing that has brought nearly $US600 billion ($A935 billion) in annual bilateral trade to a virtual standstill.

The trade dispute, combined with Trump’s decision in April to impose duties on dozens of other countries, has disrupted supply chains, unsettled financial markets and stoked fears of a sharp global downturn.

The location of the talks in the Swiss diplomatic hub was never made public. However, witnesses saw both delegations returning after a lunch break to the gated UN ambassador’s villa, which has its own private park overlooking Lake Geneva in the leafy suburb of Cologny.

Earlier, US officials including Bessent and Greer smiled as they left their hotel on the way to the talks, wearing red ties and American flags on their lapels. Bessent declined to speak to reporters.

At the same time, Mercedes vans with tinted windows were seen leaving a hotel where the Chinese delegation was staying on the lakeside as runners preparing for a weekend marathon warmed up in the sunshine.

Washington is seeking to reduce its $US295 billion ($A460 billion) goods trade deficit with Beijing and persuade China to renounce what the United States says is a mercantilist economic model and contribute more to global consumption, a shift that would require politically sensitive domestic reforms.

Beijing has pushed back against what it sees as external interference. It wants Washington to lower tariffs, clarify what it wants China to buy more of, and treat it as an equal on the world stage.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency said in a commentary on Saturday the United States’ “reckless abuse of tariffs” had destabilised the global economic order, but added the negotiations represented “a positive and necessary step to resolve disagreements and avert further escalation”.

“Whether the road ahead involves negotiation or confrontation, one thing is clear: China’s determination to safeguard its development interests is unshakable, and its stance on maintaining the global economic and trade order remains unwavering,” Xinhua said.

With distrust running high, both sides have been keen not to appear weak, and economic analysts have low expectations of a breakthrough.

Trump said on Friday that an 80 per cent tariff on Chinese goods “seems right”, suggesting for the first time a specific alternative to the 145 per cent levies he has imposed on Chinese imports.

Ed Husic has lashed factional boss Richard Marles after losing his spot on Labor’s frontbench.

The former industry minister has been ousted by internal powerbrokers, a move understood to be signed off by Victorian right faction leader and deputy prime minister Richard Marles.

Speaking for the first time since being axed from his industry minister job, Mr Husic said Mr Marles had chosen to “wield the factional club to reshape the ministry”.

“When people look at a deputy prime minister, they expect to see a statesman, not a factional assassin,” he told ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.

Asked if Mr Marles put his ambition to boost his numbers ahead of the good of the Labor party and the government, Mr Husic said “a lot of people would draw that conclusion”.

Following Labor’s resounding win at the polls, the party’s progressive left and more conservative right factions have been carving up the 30 spots in the ministry.

Mr Husic was dumped to rebalance the ledger between the NSW and Victorian right, with the former over-represented in cabinet as spots are decided on a proportional basis between factions and states.

Mark Dreyfus has also lost his spot as attorney-general in the factional rejig.

Top United States and Chinese officials have wrapped up the first day of talks in Switzerland aimed at defusing trade tensions and plan to resume negotiations on Sunday, a source close to the discussions says.

Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng met for about eight hours with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Geneva in their first face-to-face meeting since the world’s two largest economies heaped tariffs well above 100 per cent on each other’s goods.

Neither side made any statements about the substance of the discussions nor signalled any progress towards reducing crushing tariffs as meetings at the residence of Switzerland’s ambassador to the United Nations concluded about 8pm local time.

Bessent, Greer and He were meeting in Geneva after weeks of growing tensions prompted by US President Donald Trump’s tariff blitz starting in February and retaliation from China that has brought nearly $US600 billion ($A935 billion) in annual bilateral trade to a virtual standstill.

The trade dispute, combined with Trump’s decision last month to impose duties on dozens of other countries, has disrupted supply chains, unsettled financial markets and stoked fears of a sharp global downturn.

The location of the talks in the Swiss diplomatic hub was never made public.

However, witnesses saw both delegations returning after a lunch break to the gated UN ambassador’s building, the 18th-century “Villa Saladin,” which has its own private park overlooking Lake Geneva in the leafy suburb of Cologny.

Earlier, US officials including Bessent and Greer smiled as they left their hotel on the way to the talks, wearing red ties and US flags on their lapels.

At the same time, Mercedes vans with tinted windows were seen leaving a hotel where the Chinese delegation was staying on the lakeside as runners preparing for a weekend marathon warmed up in the sunshine.

The US is seeking to reduce its $US295 billion goods trade deficit with China and to persuade Chinese officials to renounce what the United States says is a mercantilist economic model and contribute more to global consumption, a shift that would require politically sensitive domestic reforms.

Chinese authorities have pushed back against what they see as external interference.

They want the United States to lower tariffs, clarify what it wants China to buy more of and treat it as an equal on the world stage.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency said in a commentary on Saturday that the United States’ “reckless abuse of tariffs” had destabilised the global economic order but added that the negotiations represented “a positive and necessary step to resolve disagreements and avert further escalation”.

“Whether the road ahead involves negotiation or confrontation, one thing is clear: China’s determination to safeguard its development interests is unshakable and its stance on maintaining the global economic and trade order remains unwavering,” Xinhua said.

With distrust running high, both sides have been keen not to appear weak and economic analysts have low expectations of a breakthrough.

Trump said on Friday that an 80 per cent tariff on Chinese goods “seems right,” suggesting for the first time a specific alternative to the 145 per cent levies he has imposed on Chinese imports.

He has suggested the discussions were initiated by China.

Officials in Beijing said the United States requested the discussions and that China’s policy of opposing US tariffs had not changed.

China could be looking for the same 90-day waiver on tariffs that the US has given other countries as negotiations take place while any kind of tariff reduction and follow-up talks would be seen as positive by investors.

Swiss Economy Minister Guy Parmelin met both parties in Geneva on Friday and said the fact that the talks were taking place was already a success.

“If a road map can emerge and they decide to continue discussions, that will lower the tensions,” he told reporters on Friday, saying talks could continue into Sunday or even Monday.

Switzerland helped to broker the meeting during recent visits by Swiss politicians to China and the United States.

Chinese Vice-Premier He Lipeng have held talks with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Switzerland in a tentative first step towards defusing a trade war that is disrupting the global economy, according to China’s state-owned news agency and two people close to the talks.

Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer were due to meet He in Geneva on Saturday after weeks of growing tensions that have resulted in duties on goods imports between the world’s two largest economies soaring well beyond 100 per cent.

The trade dispute, combined with US President Donald Trump’s decision in April to impose duties on dozens of other countries, has disrupted supply chains, unsettled financial markets and stoked fears of a sharp global downturn.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday an 80 per cent tariff on Chinese goods “seems right”, suggesting for the first time a specific alternative to the 145 per cent levies imposed on Chinese imports.

The location of the talks has been kept secret, although a witness saw over a dozen police cars outside a private residence in a leafy Geneva suburb.

Mercedes vans with tinted windows were seen leaving a Geneva hotel where the Chinese delegation was staying on the banks of Lake Geneva.

Earlier, a delegation of over a dozen US officials, including Bessent and Greer, were seen smiling and wearing red ties and American flags on their lapels as they left their hotel.

Bessent declined to speak to reporters.

Tens of thousands of men, women and children have marched across Australian capital cities and regional towns calling for determined action to end gendered and sexual violence.

Advocates say the issue was not properly addressed during the federal election campaign, with funding pledges “barely even hitting the sides”.

The No More: National Rally Against Violence saw attendees gather in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Hobart and regional centres in between. 

Founder of support organisation What Were You Wearing, Sarah Williams, called for more preventative action.

“We need to be able to stop it before it starts,” she told a two-thousand-strong crowd on the steps of Parliament House in Melbourne on Saturday.

“We need more funding for primary prevention, more trauma-informed response training for police, increased crisis housing, bail law reform and uniform consent laws,” she later told AAP.

Similar rallies played out almost simultaneously in every state capital as well as several regional cities and towns.

Hundreds met in Sydney’s Hyde Park while the regional centres of Newcastle and Wollongong saw a similar turnout, including the family and friends of Mackenzie Anderson, a young mother who was stabbed 78 times and brutally murdered by her former partner in 2022.

Hundreds more rallied in Brisbane, carrying signs reading “We weren’t asking for it” and “Weak laws cost lives.” 

Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, who accused ex-colleague Bruce Lehrmann of raping her at Parliament House, was also at the rally with a sign reading: “25 women killed and still not an election issue.”

In the lead-up to the rallies, organisers urged more men to attend and take accountability over violence against women.

“Men listen to men … we need more male role models out there,” Ms Williams said.

Consent and healthy relationship education should be expanded to more schools with additional funding, and community sporting clubs and major codes could also play a role in reaching different generations, she said.

A total of 128 women have been killed since January 1 last year, according to the Australian Femicide Watch website.

Its founder Sherele Moody read aloud the names of the women as images of their faces were laid before Melbourne’s Parliament steps.

“We’re here because men keep killing us,” she said. 

“Violence against women is primarily a male problem … it’s not a women’s problem to solve but it’s women who are the ones who do the work.”

Advocates say a government-run national domestic violence register is desperately needed to track the issue.

Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Month, marked each May, is an opportunity to raise community awareness of the impacts of violence and the support available to those affected.

The rallies also called for fully funded frontline domestic violence services, expanded crisis accommodation and increased funding for primary prevention programs.

Mandatory trauma-informed training for all first responders should also be rolled out, organisers said.

The re-elected Labor government previously promised to prevent domestic violence perpetrators from abusing tax and superannuation systems.

It has also pledged to invest more funding to stop high-risk perpetrators through electronic monitoring.

But Ms Moody said ministers and leaders needed to sit down with frontline services to figure out what works.

“All the safety nets have holes in them and the funding barely even hits the sides,” she told AAP.

Ms Williams also said the government should engage with a wider range of organisations and advocates in the sector.

1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

Lifeline 13 11 14

National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028

Mexico has sued tech giant Google over its labelling of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, a change made by US President Donald Trump via executive order.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum did not provide details of the lawsuit during her daily press briefing on Friday, but said that Google had been sued.

Mexico’s Foreign Relations ministry had previously sent letters to Google asking it not to label Mexican territorial waters as the Gulf of America.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The body of water has shared borders between the United States and Mexico. 

Trump’s order only carries authority within the US. 

Mexico, as well as other countries and international bodies, do not have to recognise the name change.

Mexico argues that Gulf of America should only apply to the part of the gulf over the United States continental shelf.

In February, Sheinbaum shared a letter from Cris Turner, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, stating that Google will not change the policy it outlined after Trump declared the body of water the Gulf of America.

As it stands, the gulf appears in Google Maps as Gulf of America within the United States, as Gulf of Mexico within Mexico and Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America) elsewhere. 

Turner in his letter said the company was using Gulf of America to follow: “longstanding maps policies impartially and consistently across all regions”.

The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. 

The Associated Press refers to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. 

The White House moved in February to block the AP from being among the small group of journalists to cover Trump in the Oval Office or aboard Air Force One, with sporadic ability to cover him at events in the East Room.

The AP sued three Trump administration officials over access to presidential events, citing freedom of speech in asking a federal judge to stop the blocking of its journalists.

A federal judge ordered the White House last month to restore the AP’s full access to cover presidential events, affirming on first amendment grounds that the government cannot punish the news organisation for the content of its speech. 

The judge’s decision granted emergency relief while the lawsuit proceeds.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wants his party to show cohesion after Labor’s thumping election win, while his rivals risk tearing themselves apart to find a new leader.

Speaking to the largest Labor caucus ever elected on Friday, Mr Albanese acknowledged his place in history alongside the 21 people who have led the Australian Labor Party since its inception in 1901.

His election win one week ago is Labor’s biggest on a two-party preferred basis since John Curtin during the Second World War.

The lower house haul of 91 seats, which could go as high as 95 as counting continues, is the largest in the party’s history.

But Mr Albanese already had an eye on growing his party’s numbers at the next election.

“If the Labor Party is focused, if the Labor Party is united, if the Labor Party is always thinking not about the people in the room but the people outside of the room … there is no reason at all why, not only can everyone return here after the next election in 2028, but that more people can’t be elected with Labor next to their name as well,” he said.

Partly driving Labor’s success in the election was a backlash against the coalition’s proposal to gut the public service, which Mr Albanese described as “frankly juvenile, anti-Canberra rhetoric”.

But Labor’s internal cohesion has been tested by its success.

Senior cabinet ministers Mark Dreyfus and Ed Husic have been cut from the 30-person ministry by factional bosses, with Victorian MPs Sam Rae and Daniel Mulino and Senator Jess Walsh elevated instead.

“Politics is a tough game, and they (Mr Dreyfus and Mr Husic) would be feeling very, very hurt right now,” frontbencher Mark Butler told Sky News.

Mr Albanese will decide assign portfolios next week.

Unity is in short supply in the Liberal Party.

The Liberals’ moderate and conservative wings have fallen in behind deputy leader Sussan Ley and shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, respectively, as the duo vie for the party leadership vacated by Peter Dutton.

The party room meets on Tuesday to settle the issue.

Meanwhile, the Greens will vote for a new party leader on Thursday after Adam Bandt was booted from his lower house seat of Melbourne.

Deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi and manager of business in the Senate Sarah Hanson-Young are early frontrunners, but fellow senators Larissa Waters, David Shoebridge and Jordon Steele-John have also been touted.

Interim leader Nick McKim has ruled himself out of the race. 

He defended the Greens’ stance on Gaza, saying it was important to call out genocide, amid criticism that it alienated voters.

World stocks have hovered around their highest prices in six weeks after a US trade deal with Britain fuelled guarded optimism for progress in tariff talks with other countries.

MSCI’s broadest index of world shares gained 0.1 per cent on Friday after jumping about 0.8 per cent the previous day to levels seen just before Trump’s “Liberation Day” global tariff announcements.

“The deal between the US and UK was more style over substance,” said Kyle Rodda, a senior financial markets analyst at Capital.com.

The “general terms” agreement leaves in place a 10 per cent tariff on goods imported from the UK but lowers prohibitive US duties on UK car exports. Britain agreed to lower its tariffs to 1.8 per cent from 5.1 per cent and provide greater access to US goods.

“However, it feeds the narrative that the US is looking to bang out rapid-fire trade deals and reduce tariffs – at the margins – and other trade barriers,” Rodda said.

Last week, Trump said he has “potential” trade deals with India, South Korea and Japan.

Trump pushed back against seeing the UK deal as a template for other negotiations, perhaps, including those due Saturday when US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and chief trade negotiator Jamieson Greer will meet China’s economic tsar He Lifeng in Switzerland.

European stock markets opened higher on Friday.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.4 per cent, with all regional bourses trading higher.

An investor rush from safe assets such as government bonds into riskier ones such as stocks might meant markets are getting ahead of themselves on optimism, said James Rossiter, head of global macro strategy at TD Securities.

“The trade deal isn’t really a trade deal. It’s an agreement on a few narrow topics. Still, it shows there is a degree of movement and that some tariffs could be mitigated,” Rossiter said.

Even so, “tariffs are not going away”.

Reaction to the UK trade agreement yesterday and the optimistic trade figures that emerged yesterday from China have pushed markets higher temporarily, but “the fundamentals behind what markets are seeing are not as robust”, Rossiter said.

Safe-haven German Bund prices fell on Friday, driving yields 5.2 basis points higher as investors dropped their bonds for assets with higher returns.

Bitcoin soared to the highest since January and US crude ticked up after a more than three per cent surge on Thursday.

Brent crude added 85 cents to $US63.70 a barrel following Thursday’s 2.8 per cent rally.

NYMEX US crude skipped up 84 cents to $US60.76 a barrel on Friday, building on the previous day’s surge.

The US dollar index, which measures the currency against six major peers, edged away from Thursday’s one-month peak to be down 0.3 per cent.

The euro rose from its one-month trough at $US1.1257, and sterling ticked up 0.2 per cent to $US1.3270.

Mainland China blue chips closed down 0.2 per cent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng ended 0.4 per cent higher.

Japan’s Nikkei soared 1.6 per cent and Taiwan’s equity benchmark advanced 1.8 per cent, with technology shares the strongest performing sector.