It does sound like the kind of pay rise Labor and the unions would engineer three Saturdays before a close election. And a headline like a 35% pay rise sounds like great news to Labor voters and worrying to pro-business Liberal voters.

However, there are a few facts to this story that saw Opposition Workplace Relations spokeswoman Michaelia Cash say that the Coalition supported the Commission being the independent body to determine pay and conditions for awards.

“We will examine this decision and its implications,” she said.

So, how come a big pay hike isn’t getting a prominent Liberal politician hopping mad? Well, try these facts about this historic decision from the Fair Work Commission:

1. It only affects 175,000 low-paid workers.
2. Those affected are predominantly women.
3. It could lead to higher childcare costs for parents if the Federal Government doesn’t raise funding to cover these higher wages.
4. There’ll be a 35% wage rise for some health professionals; 27.8% for early childhood workers; and up to 10.9% for pathology collectors.
5. These rises will incorporate the 15% increases recently secured for early childhood workers but with a top up to 27.8%.
6. The Fair Work Commission suggests these rises should be phased in over five years.

The Australian today says “the 15 percent rise required $3.6bn in funding by the Albanese government over two years and Labor has yet to state its position on funding for further pay rises”.

Socially, few people would argue against these workers being paid a historically sexist determined wage, but economically there will be a cost to Government and businesses, which could be bad for budget deficits going forward, profits of private business and inflation.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox told The Australian that if the Government doesn’t put its hand in its pocket, there’ll be “potentially unaffordable increases in childcare costs for some parents. In some circumstances, it will no doubt also result in the reduced availability of childcare services. This is an intolerable situation.”

And while Canberra will be expected to help contain the cost impact on childcare businesses and parents, then business owners will ultimately look at technical solutions that could possibly reduce the reliance on workers.

As I said earlier, these rises look socially applaudable but there will be some economic consequences for the Federal Government or parents using childcare businesses, and other private commercial operations in other sectors that employ low-paid workers.

This latter observation explains why economics is called “the dismal science”!