Tennis champ Dylan Alcott steals show at jobs and skills summit
Australian of the Year Dylan Alcott brought the laughs to an otherwise serious jobs and skill summit in Canberra.
Australian of the Year Dylan Alcott has welcomed the chance to speak to a jobs and skills summit, considering he is a self-proclaimed “washed-up tennis player”.
The champ brought his trademark humour to the first day of the two-day event, which the government hopes will help find solutions to workforce shortages and wage stagnation.
“I feel very lucky. I’d much rather be here than at the US Open, don’t worry about that,” he said to laughter.
But his speech quickly turned serious as he shifted focus to discuss the workforce participation among people with disabilities, which has remained at 54 per cent for 28 years.
He said people with a disability just wanted to have a “crack”.
“Some people want a job, for sure. Do you know what some people want? They want a career. They want a leadership position,” Alcott said.
“I don't want to scare you, but they want your seats as well.”
He added it “really isn’t fair’ that people with disabilities lost their job first in times of pandemic, natural disaster or recession.
“It’s not just about getting us in the front door. It’s about creating a safe workplace once we’re there,” he said.
“The time for changing this isn’t now – it’s yesterday.”
BURKE CONFIRMS MAJOR REFORMS TO COME
The government has confirmed work will begin next week to reform the better off overall test and on legislation to enable multi-employer bargaining.
Employment Minister Tony Burke outlined the number of changes at the completion of the two-hour session on workplace relations.
“I’m interested in anything that gets wages moving, particularly for women workers and I’m interested in opening up the system to small business,” Mr Burke told reporters.
Stronger protections for workers against adverse action, all forms of discrimination, and harassment are also on the table.
While there appears to be consensus on softening the BOOT, the government’s plans to forge ahead with multi-employer bargaining is contentious.
AI Group chief executive Innes Willox raised concern it would risk industrial action across crucial sectors of the economy.
“We need to have as a starting point an assumption in this debate that what we need is not radical reform but a good look at serious repair of the system,” he said.
“As a country we need a modern and open economy with a workplace relations framework that encourages fairness, flexibility and productivity.”
ECONOMY AT A ‘CRITICAL JUNCTURE’
The Treasurer has issued a dire warning to Australian workers, insisting salaries could be thousands of dollars worse off in the near future unless major issues are addressed.
Jim Chalmers made the comments in his opening address to the jobs and skills summit which kicked off the first of two days of discussions on Thursday.
Australians could be out $13,000 per person in real terms over the next four decades, if productivity growth averages 1.2 per cent instead of rising to the 1.5 per cent rate assumed in the Intergenerational report.
“We must make productivity growth an urgent task, a national task, a task for all of us,” he said.
“Not just because higher profits depend on it, but because higher wages depend on it. An economy capable of sustaining full employment depends on it.”
BILLION-DOLLAR BLITZ FOR AUSSIE STUDENTS
More students will be able to access further education for free after Anthony Albanese unveiled a billion-dollar TAFE package.
The Prime Minister kicked off the jobs and skills summit at Parliament House by announcing 180,000 additional fee-free TAFE places will be made available for 2023.
National cabinet signed off on the jointly funded $1.1bn package when it met on Wednesday.
“It’s my great hope that this jobs and skills summit marks the beginning of a new culture of co-operation, a new focus on working together to deal with the urgent challenges that our economy is facing,” he said.
Mr Albanese told the gathering not to “dig deeper trenches on the same battlefields,” and asked them to make compromises.
“Compromises will need to be negotiated, sacrifices will need to be made. If we can get it right, if we can seek out points of consensus … the results will certainly be worth it,” he said.
“Let all of us, as leaders and representatives, rise to this moment.”
AUSTRALIA SHOULD ‘TREAT WOMEN LIKE IRON ORE’
Grattan Institute chief Danielle Wood, who delivered the keynote address, said a commitment to full employment should be the summit’s top priority.
Additionally, to “future proof” the economy, Australia must to invest in human capital, harness existing talent pool — with a focus on women — and restore economic dynamism by promoting innovation, job switching and competition in the corporate sector.
“The Australian economy, like all of us, looks increasingly older, fatter, and slower,” Ms Wood said.
She joked that if women’s participation were iron ore, Australia would “dig it up”.
“Women are often excluded from full-time work, and from the most prestigious high-paid roles, because these so-called ‘greedy jobs’ are incompatible with the load of unpaid care still disproportionately shouldered by women,” Ms Wood said.
“I can’t help but reflect that if untapped women’s workforce participation was a massive ore deposit, we would have governments lining up to give tax concessions to get it out of the ground.”
TOXIC WORKPLACES HOLDING WOMEN BACK
The first session of the day was a panel discussion on equal opportunities and pay for women, which Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said was the heart of the government’s priorities.
Attendees were told the gender pay gap should be interpreted as a sign that the strengths of women were not being fully recognised and valued.
“There’s little use in telling women you just need to be more confident, more ambitious, when workplaces don’t value or reward women in the same way,” Chief Executive Women’s Sam Mostyn said.
Australia’s paid parental leave scheme was also flagged at being in the sights of the unions, who want it expanded to 52 weeks by 2040.
“We can’t let this be the legacy for the next generation,” ACTU president Michelle O’Neil said.
Panellists also called for an overhaul to the industrial relations laws, which they said is failing women, especially in the care economy.
“We have a bargaining system that’s designed for large male dominated workplaces, locking women in feminised industries out of system and leaving them without power to join together with others and negotiate.”
But it is the toxic workplace culture that is holding some women back form returning to work.
Equality Institute executive director Emma Fulu attributed it to one of the reasons the nation was experiencing shortages in the services sector.
“Women are saying enough is enough. Do I really want to work in a place that doesn’t value me as a human being?” Ms Fulu said.
“It’s not enough to have a sexual harassment policy if the culture it sits within condones, excuses or minimises that type of everyday sexism and abuse.”
CHILDCARE COSTING VICTORIAN ECONOMY $1.5BN EACH YEAR
More than 26,000 women are locked out of the Victorian workforce, Premier Daniel Andrews told the jobs and skills summit.
Mr Andrews told the gathering that fixing the “broken” childcare system was the “biggest contribution we can make to economic prosperity”.
“We shouldn’t see it as just a matter of fairness. It’s much bigger than that,’ he said.
“Just in my state, there are 26,600 women who are completely locked out of the workforce because of the dynamic that I’ve just spoken about,” he said.
“That costs us $1.5 billion each and every year – that’s just in our state and that’s just those who are completely locked out.
“So, better early childhood education, dealing with childcare deserts, making childcare work for working families, has never been more important.”
CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY NEEDS OVERHAUL
Burnt out workers and reforms to provide more rights for women in the construction industry were key issues raised by stakeholders on Thursday.
The industry was in need of a culture overhaul, Australian Constructors Association chief Jon Davies said.
“It’s simply not good enough … Government, industry and unions recognise the need for change and are taking important steps to achieve that.”
He told the jobs and skills summit that construction workers were six times more likely to take their own lives than die from workplace incidents.
Women make up just two per cent of the industry, Electrical Trades Union secretary Michael Wright said.
“We have a gender divide that would have made the 1950s gasp,” he said.
“Too often women don’t even have equal bathrooms let alone equal pay.”
PENALTY RATES ‘COMMERCIALLY UNVIABLE’
Penalty rates have been blamed for small businesses being unable to give women more hours.
COSBOA chief Alexi Boyd recounted an email she received from business owner Adam who said he would like to give his employees – mostly women under the hair and beauty award – more hours but couldn’t.
“We would like to offer more hours they are seeking. However, these hours currently must be paid at overtime penalty rates at time or double time and a half depending on the additional hours,” she said.
“This imposition of penalty rates makes it commercially unviable for us to provide more hours. Instead, we’re forced to engage employees, which complicates the system and means we have to engage with more workers.”
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