His problem with the Labor Party was it "doesn't often enough support good policy". Asked about Bill Shorten's future, Tony Abbott said: "I'm not in the business of running a sort of character assessment of people in other political parties". Credit:Marina Neil The Abbott government's key union reforms are before Parliament. One bill would create an independent union regulator, while the other would reinstate the Australian Building and Construction Commission. "If anyone in the Labor Party wants to redeem themselves, they can get behind the Registered Organisations Commission Bill and help ensure that unions have the same high standards of governance which we've long had with companies," Mr Abbott said. Labor's employment spokesman Brendan O'Connor said the Prime Minister was using the royal commission to "justify his punitive legislative agenda."

Labor is opposed to both bills, which are unlikely to pass the current Senate.



On the registered organisations bill, he said that Mr Shorten had as a minister increased penalties for registered organisations which breached the laws, and improved accountability. "As a result the regulation of trade unions has never been stronger," Mr O'Connor said. "Increasing penalties for officers of registered organisations, many of whom are volunteers, would be greater than directors of publicly listed companies." Mr O'Connor said the proposed Australian Building and Construction Commission's powers were "excessive, undemocratic and unwarranted in terms of regulating civil laws". "Any crime that happens in workplaces by an employer, by an employee, or by a union delegate should be investigated by crime fighting agencies - the police or the Australian Crime Commission."

In the royal commission this week it was revealed that Mr Shorten had failed for eight years to declare a donation of more than $40,000 used to pay his 2007 campaign manager's salary. Both sides of politics have failed to declare political donations, raising concerns about the way laws around political fundraising are being enforced. On Friday, Mr Abbott would not comment on whether the Australian Electoral Commission's processes should be reconsidered. "This is a matter for the Australian Electoral Commission," he said. Earlier on Friday morning, Small Business Minister Bruce Billson said there was something "NQR" - not quite right - about the donations accepted by Mr Shorten. "I think what people are really interested in — imagine if you had a trusted mate buying a car for you, trying to get you a good deal, then you find out your mate is getting a sling from the man who is selling the car, that's just dodgy," he told Channel Nine.

"If he is getting a sling off the car seller, how does he look after your interests? "There is something NQR [not quite right] about that, which is the issue." In Melbourne on Friday, Mr Shorten called the commission a "political smear campaign", and questioned why the government was spending $80 million on it, compared with $15 million on its family violence campaign. He rejected Mr Billson's comments and would not concede the circumstances around the donations appeared suspicious. Mr Shorten said he had been willing to answer 900 questions at the commission over two days "because I am proud of my record of representing Australian working people".

"In my time and (on) the evidence relating to me, Australian workers that I represented did well." Mr Abbott denied the royal commission had been created for political reasons, saying that former Fair Work commissioner Ian Cambridge, a former senior member of the Australian Workers Union, was among those who supported it. Both the royal commission into trade unions and the royal commission into the Rudd government's failed home insulation program, which resulted in four deaths, "were addressing very serious public policy challenges. (Both)…have been casting a spotlight into some of the darker corners of our national life and that's what royal commissions are there for". People were called before royal commissions because the commissions decided their evidence was needed, he said. Mr Abbott also defended the independence and objectivity of royal commissioner and former High Court Justice Dyson Heydon, who on Thursday questioned Mr Shorten's credibility as a witness and asked him to curb his at times "extraneous" answers to senior counsel assisting the commission, Jeremy Stoljar.

"There is no more distinguished person in the legal profession than Justice Dyson Heydon and he is conducting this royal commission in accordance with the usual canons of fairness and exactitude." Follow us on Twitter