This week the Australian government hosted its “jobs and skills summit.” The paper agenda as well as the guest list — a combination of government representatives, business, unions, and “community” organizations — had been public knowledge for weeks, but until now, the summit’s purpose remained unclear.

A chimerical series of claims were made throughout late August by the ruling Labor Party, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), and the Business Council of Australia (BCA). The government had initially explained the event to be in the service of boosting wage growth and vowed to act on this issue regardless of developments at the summit. The ACTU condemned the industrial relations system as pro-business and demanded a rebalancing in workers’ favor. For their part, business groups warned that the summit risked dragging Australia “back to the ’70s.”

But two days before the event the tone mysteriously shifted. The ACTU and BCA announced a “unity ticket.” Both ACTU secretary Sally McManus and BCA chief executive Jennifer Westacott declared that all parties were on the same page. The industrial relations system, they argued, could and should be “simplified.”