Jobs and skills summit: It is all about listening, being heard and being bold

And to - let's face it - announce decisions in a made-for-TV event that it was already in a good mind to do.

Well before the two-day summit, the migration cap increase - to 195,000 from 160,000 for the 2022-23 year - was well-supported and flagged for action. We just needed the numbers.

And the temporary upfront $4,000 income bank credit for aged pensioners? Turns out Labor has been looking at since before the election.

Now with 36 "concrete" summit outcomes to get cracking on this year, and the promise of more yet in the pipeline, the event has "exceeded all expectations" according to Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

"We tried to keep our expectations in check, but we've detected I think - haven't we Prime Minister? - around this country, certainly the last few months, but before that as well, a genuine hunger for some real talk about our economic challenges and a genuine appetite to see what we might be able to achieve if we work together," Dr Chalmers told the summit.

Real talk and, of course, real action.

We have been aware for decades now that Australia's workplace laws have been in serious need for a reboot. Ditto for the childcare system, which anyone who remotely touches it (hello parents and childcare workers) knows is broken.

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What the government really does not want to do - despite concerted beseeching from summiteers and relentless media interviews - is bring forward its childcare reforms. Nope. No way. Wait for July 1, no matter how good the reform is.

The jobs and skills summit has been all about being heard. And with that, being different from the other guys of the Peter Dutton persuasion who stayed true to form and chose to snub the event.

This event, in a big part, is for people who either don't understand politics or who are over it. That's a few. So that makes holding the summit smart politics.

The question then is, are they watching? There has been saturation media around this event and, at some point, even the most ardent politics dodgers will have somehow seen on a social media feed that the PM is doing something this week about jobs.

Perhaps even that women were front and centre at the summit. That it was a national gathering of men and women split 50/50.

Minister for Women Katy Gallagher declared women "nailed it" at the summit and said gender equality was unanimously recognised by summiteers as critical to Australia's economic resilience and prosperity.

"It's not an add on. It's not something you do after lunch. It's not something nice. It's not social policy. It's economic, good economic policy, and everyone signed up to that," she reported back.

People genuinely want to be heard, whether it is the public or stakeholders sitting in the great hall. Some of the panellists have poured their hearts out in the few minutes allotted and the Prime Minister has been in the front row. That's something.

The real summit outcomes have been the connections that have been made over the past two days. Opposing sides meeting face-to-face on the floor of the great hall or the parliamentary foyer. Even the NSW Premier and the Rail, Tram and Bus Union national secretary had a testy face-to-face over a pay deal and industrial action. Doesn't sound like it helped though.

Summit observers have heard rousing motifs: we need a "big shift in our thinking" and we must deliver "bold generational reform". Although there was a contradictory warning or two against "radical or risky" reform.

Although he did not attend the summit, Mr Dutton said he will hold Labor to account, "I want to see the rubber hit the road".

Politics done differently? It is what people voted for on May 21. It is all in the delivery.