The Australian share market has opened the week solidly higher after Wall Street hit fresh records on Friday amid disappointing jobs data.

The US added just 266,000 jobs in April, well short of the million expected by analysts, as the world's largest economy continued to emerge from its sharpest recession since the Great Depression.

However, far from panic, share investors greeted the disappointing numbers with enthusiasm because they raised the likelihood that the US central bank would be able to keep interest rates lower for longer.

OANDA's senior market analyst Edward Moya said the weaker-than-expected job creation should also lend support to President Joe Biden's stimulus plans.

"In the end, this big miss should give Biden more ammunition to push through his next stimulus/infrastructure package," he wrote in a note.

"This NFP report was a gamechanger for macro traders that have been both overly confident in the labour market recovery, and were leaning towards believing the Fed was possibly making a policy mistake on holding off taper talks."

The hope for more stimulus, monetary and fiscal, pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 index up 0.7 per cent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq outperformed with a 0.9 per cent gain.

ASX boosted by commodities

The Australian share market is matching those gains, with a 0.9 per cent rise supported also by climbing commodity prices.

The benchmark ASX 200 index was up 0.9 per cent to 7,147 by 2:05pm AEST, with the broader All Ordinaries posting similar gains to 7,394 points.

The mining sector was leading the gains, surging 3.4 per cent, as iron ore hit a fresh record on Friday of $US212.75 a tonne.

Copper also hit record highs on the London Metals Exchange, trading at $US10,420 per tonne.

CBA commodity analyst Vivek Dhar said copper prices jumped on future supply concerns.

"Chile's lower house approved a bill that could see progressive taxes applied on the country's copper sales from 2024," he noted.

"Chile's government has estimated that the total tax burden for large copper miners under the bill could be over around 80 per cent, potentially delaying new output. Chile accounts for around 26 per cent of global mined copper supply.

Australia's big iron ore miners had strong gains, with BHP Billiton up 3.1 per cent, Rio Tinto 4.1 per cent and Fortescue 7.3 per cent by the early afternoon.

Copper and gold miners also enjoyed big gains, such as Oz Minerals, which was up 4.6 per cent to $26.92 and Newcrest Mining (+2.7 per cent).

The Australian dollar also benefited, jumping almost one cent from last week's levels to 78.4 US cents.

The biggest loser was A2 Milk (-11.7 per cent) on a trading update that revealed a big drop off in sales, especially in the Chinese '"daigou" reseller category, leading to excess inventory that will need to be cleared.

Explosives and fertiliser maker Incitec Pivot was down 9.5 per cent on problems with its Waggaman ammonia plant, which is likely to be shut for two to three weeks for repairs at a cost of up to $42 million.

Despite gains for the major banks generally, ANZ was dragging on the market, falling 1.2 per cent as it traded without rights to its latest 70-cent dividend from today.

Star-Crown merger plan boosts both

The Star-Crown merger proposal has seen both companies gain, with the latter also boosted by an increased takeover offer from private equity firm Blackstone.

Crown jumped 6.7 per cent to $12.93, with The Star Entertainment Group up 7.9 per cent to $4.22.

They had the two biggest gains among the top-200 stocks in early trade.