Jobs and Skills Summit: Talking tactics while Sydney goes off the rails

In the Great Hall of Parliament House the talk was of industrial harmony. It was a world away from the escalating industrial war in Sydney.

Rail, Tram and Bus Union national secretary Mark Diamond, left, and Queensland Council of Unions general secretary Michael Clifford at the summit. Picture: AAP

In the Great Hall of Parliament House on Thursday the talk was of industrial harmony.

And Mark Diamond, national secretary of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union took his seat beside Queensland Union boss Michael Clifford as part of the union contingent to talk consensus with the likes of Richard Pratt, Andrew Forrest and Alan Joyce.

It was a world away from the escalating industrial war Diamond’s union is leading in Sydney, which has caused grinding traffic chaos as the city’s train drivers cripple the transport system with a series of strikes.

Anthony Albanese spruiked joint collaboration between unions, industry and government, as he called for participants not to rehash old fights or “dig deeper trenches on the same old battle group”.

Sitting in the front row of the summit was NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet.

As afternoon tea broke and the delegates mingled in Parliament’s Marble Foyer, Diamond and Perrottet came together.

Accounts differ of the meeting.

Diamond says Perrottet, who described the Rail, Tram and Bus Union’s conduct in its industrial campaign as “absolutely disgusting’’, became aggressive. Perrottet rejected Diamond’s account of the conversation.

“Mr Diamond approached me during the jobs summit and asked to have a chat,” the Premier told The Australian. “I was more than happy to have a conversation with him, which we proceeded to do for about five minutes.”

The rest of the jobs summit appeared relatively uneventful, with deals already done behind closed doors after weeks of roundtables between ministers and industry groups. Unions will win access to multi-employer bargaining while employers will win easier agreements through simplifications to the better-off-overall test.

Toll executive Christine Holgate walked the halls of parliament in a hot pink suit and sparkly silver boots — a far cry from the suffragette white she wore at the height of the controversy over her exit from Australia Post and political battle with Scott Morrison .

Earlier in the day, billionaire mining magnate Forrest was seen chatting to Maritime Union of Australia president Christy Cain, finding an unlikely ally to enjoy morning tea in parliament’s marble foyer.

Fellow sportsmen David Pocock, now a senator, and Australian of the Year Dylan Alcott took lunch together in the garden, alongside Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins and Disability Discrimination Commissioner Ben Gauntlett.

While most of the day was smooth sailing for the government, tensions emerged over its reluctance to bring forward childcare reforms amid growing cost of living pressures.

Australian Council of Trade Unions president Michele O’Neil said the 18 weeks of paid parental leave was not adequate and needed to be as high as 52 weeks.

Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel delivered a stern warning to Albanese, saying: “The government’s childcare measures must be brought forward.

“If we can afford stage three tax cuts, we can afford this economy boosting measure.”

Back in NSW, tensions have boiled over as the train drivers’ industrial campaign has dragged on.

A NSW government ultimatum to cease industrial action or face the tearing up of the government’s $1bn offer to modify intercity trains and the termination of pay offers to train drivers expires on Friday.

Recounting his conversation with Perrottet on Thursday ­evening, Diamond said he had sought to have an “impartial” conversation with the Premier in a bid to find a way through the transport crisis.

Diamond told The Australian he interrupted the Premier who initially agreed to speak to him, with the union boss claiming the conversation quickly turned sour. He said the Premier was a “pretty angry guy”.

“I tried to approach him in the foyer of the parliament today and it wasn’t received well,” Diamond said. “At first he said he would talk to me. Then he become aggressive and made comments about what he thought we did to the public yesterday. I tried to placate him but he was a pretty angry guy.

“He said that he had threatened to terminate the deal. And I was trying to say, ‘have you spoken to my members, or understand how angry they are?’ And then he went off about yesterday (Wednesday) and what it was doing to the NSW public.”

Perrottet warned in The Australian on Thursday that the campaign by unions against the NSW government threatened to undermine the summit.

“The unions don’t seem to understand: it’s not your political adversaries you’re hurting, it’s the families who can’t get to work and whose cost of living will only rise further and faster if they have to foot the bill for excessive public service pay rises,’’ Perrottet wrote.

Diamond later attacked the Premier over his threat to tear up the sector’s industrial agreement, and accused him of playing politics ahead of the March election.