Key Points
- The future of Australia's migration program is one of the major topics at Anthony Albanese's Jobs and Skills Summit.
- One of the main issues is ongoing worker shortages that have hit employers across the economy.
The future of Australia's migration program is one of the major topics up for discussion later this week as Anthony Albanese hosts the Jobs and Skills Summit.
Businesses are crying out for more workers, while employees are looking for a better pay deal in the face of soaring inflation.
The government has flagged a number of reforms will follow from the roundtable - here's how the agenda is shaping up.
Why is the Jobs and Skills Summit different?
There are some major challenges on the agenda for the summit to tackle.
One of the main issues is ongoing worker shortages that have hit employers across the economy.
From airlines to manufacturers to restaurants, it is taking longer and longer to fill vacancies, all while the unemployment rate tracks at a historic low of 3.4 per cent.
The future of Australia's migration program is also on the agenda.
Border closures during the pandemic have disrupted the flow of skilled migration, while the Department of Immigration is struggling to process a huge backlog of applications.
Meanwhile, growth in real wages is stagnant, and unions are pushing for major reforms to lift workers' pay.
Australian Council of Trade Unions Secretary Sally McManus on Thursday launched a push to implement industry-wide bargaining, which allows unions to strike pay deals across multiple workplaces in a sector of the economy.
The ACTU has also called for other major changes, including a windfall tax on companies profiting from high inflation and the dumping of the Stage 3 tax cuts, introduced by the Coalition and supported by Labor.
Who is turning up, and who isn’t?
It’s the hottest ticket in Canberra - just one hundred people will be invited to attend the summit - with the guest list yet to be formally finalised.
The breakdown is expected to consist of thirty per cent representatives from business, thirty per cent representatives from unions and thirty per cent for community groups and academics.
The final ten per cent are for members of federal, state and local governments.
The state premiers are all due to attend, as is Greens leader Adam Bandt.
But one notable absentee will be Opposition leader Peter Dutton.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton will not attend the Jobs and Skills Summit but Nationals leader David Littleproud will attend.
But in a split in Coalition ranks, his Nationals counterpart David Littleproud announced he will attend to raise issues relevant to regional Australia.
“This summit is definitely a platform for the unions, there's no doubt about that, and obviously we want to make sure that we'll call them out,” Mr Littleproud told SBS News at the time.
“I think it's important we do have a voice in whatever forum is provided.”
Among the business heavyweights with a ticket are Scott Farquhar from Atlassian, mining magnate Andrew Forrest, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce, Business Council chief Jennifer Westacott and National Farmer Federation President Fiona Simpson.
Representatives from the banks, retail groups and the building industry will also get a seat at the table.
Is it just another talkfest?
Summits like this are nothing new - one recent comparison is Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit, which took place in April 2008, five months after he was elected Prime Minister.
That had a much broader focus, with Hollywood actors Hugh Jackman and Cate Blanchett among the thousand Australians invited to give their ideas on how to shape Australia’s future.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and actor Cate Blanchett laughing at the 2020 summit in Canberra, Saturday, April 19, 2008. Source: AAP / Alan Porritt
But other initiatives, like the National Disability Insurance Scheme, have since been established.
But this summit appears closer in vision to the Prices and Income Accord brokered by Bob Hawke in 1983.
Like the Skills Summit, the roundtable was held at a time of deep economic instability, with inflation soaring.
Prime Minister Bob Hawke in discussion with Deputy Prime Minister, Lionel Bowen during the opening meeting of the first Hawke Cabinet, Parliament House, Canberra, March, 1983. Credit: National Archives of Australia/PR Image.
The Prices and Income Accord was followed by several more accords and laid the groundwork for major reform of Australia’s industrial relations system under the Hawke/Keating government, which remained in power for thirteen years.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has played down comparisons to the Hawke accords, saying his own aims are “not as ambitious.”
“What we are interested in is making sure that we can have improvements in enterprise bargaining, that we can focus there on productivity, and we can focus on ways in which business and unions come together,” he told Sky News.
