Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Reflecting on my father's wisdom yesterday for Father's Day, I remember him always saying, 'Don't worry about the fog. When it clears, it'll always be a beautiful, sunny day.' That wasn't the thought that I had last Thursday as I sat at Newcastle Airport, looking out into a real pea souper where you couldn't see much beyond your arm, and waited to get on my flight here to Canberra, which was also enveloped in fog. I was desperate to come to Canberra to be part of the jobs summit. Well, the fog started to clear enough, we took off, and I was able to land and get to the summit.

But that analogy made me reflect on the summit itself. It seems to me that, particularly for the last 10 years, we have been enveloped in a fog of industrial relations. Among the people who attended the summit, there was a great variety of business titans, of union leaders, of community advocates and of progressive forward-thinkers. Whilst there's still disagreement on some elements of the Jobs and Skills Summit outcomes, one of the key things that was agreed upon was that our system needs to change, particularly our system relating to industrial relations. Looking at wages, looking at bargaining and looking at the outcome for Australian workers, everyone in that room agreed, largely, that we could do better—that we must, in fact, do better. And, as promised, the Albanese government isn't wasting a minute. It was a very special and productive feeling in that room, and I think that unless you were there it was very difficult to get the feeling that everyone had. It didn't come across necessarily on the live broadcast, but in that room there was a real willingness to make change. I jokingly said to a couple of the participants, 'What a shame we can't draw up a phial of the willingness that's in this room at the moment and use it to inoculate people, perhaps, when that willingness dwindles in future months!' But it was there and it was palpable, and I did consider it a great privilege to be at the jobs summit on Thursday.

As we bring industry, unions, workers and the government together we are seeking a more cohesive future for Australia. As a union member myself, I was extremely proud to see 20 union representatives in the room. I was also so pleased to see people who come from very diverse backgrounds talking to each other. As someone was talking about in one of my meetings today, there were people who should be working together that didn't even have each other's phone numbers. So I feel that the summit meant so much more than just a talkfest, as it has been labelled by many.

I am looking forward to seeing the outcomes that are going to result from the summit. One of the immediate wins that we had—and I was particularly pleased to see it—was the initiative coming out of it on the Friday allowing seniors and pensioners to earn $4,000 more this financial year. I think they are an enormous well of largely untapped potential in a very tight jobs market. These people have a lifetime of experience and skills and, as we know, 70 is the new 50 and 80 is the new 60! They're energised, they want to contribute and we know that they can contribute. It's great to think that the Albanese Labor government is tapping into that capital, that labour, and that we can put people who want to be working and earning a few dollars more in their later years to productive use. I think that's just a great thing.

Sometimes too we see that when that happens, obviously, the interaction between older workers and younger workers can be really fantastic. The summit was a success and I'm really so pleased to have been part of it.

See this speech in context