The Opposition has released its industrial relations policy, pledging no changes to unfair dismissal laws or measures to set penalty rates in the first term of a Coalition government.

Instead, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says the Coalition will target "dodgy union officials" and focus on measures to "improve" the current Fair Work Act.

"We will retain and improve the Fair Work Act; we want to protect workers' pay and conditions; we also want to maximise their opportunities to get good jobs," he said.

"I want to assure all the workers of Australia, unionised and non-unionised, that they can trust their future in our hands."

Keen to avoid any suggestion that the Howard-era regime of WorkChoices would be revived, Mr Abbott has revealed a softly-softly policy that proposes minor changes to the current legislation. It shows the Coalition is clearly playing "small target politics" - at least in the workplace relations sphere.

Key points of the Coalition's policy The current Fair Work system will be retained.

The current Fair Work system will be retained. Tougher penalties for unions and officials who will be governed by the same laws as companies.

Tougher penalties for unions and officials who will be governed by the same laws as companies. The Registered Organisations Commission will act as a watchdog to unions.

The Registered Organisations Commission will act as a watchdog to unions. The construction industry watchdog, the Building and Construction Commission, will be restored.

The construction industry watchdog, the Building and Construction Commission, will be restored. Unions' access to workplaces will be tightened.

Unions' access to workplaces will be tightened. Strikes will only be able to happen after talks between parties.

Strikes will only be able to happen after talks between parties. Individual flexibility arrangements will be made available to all workers.

Individual flexibility arrangements will be made available to all workers. Unfair dismissal laws remain unchanged.

Unfair dismissal laws remain unchanged. Recommendations from the Fair Work Review will be considered.

Under the policy, the Coalition would extend access to existing individual flexibility arrangements to all workers, "and we won't allow them to be excluded by enterprise bargaining agreements," Mr Abbott said.

The Opposition Leader also promised the Coalition would "re-emphasise the importance of productivity in enterprise bargaining under the Fair Work Act", restore right of entry provisions, and ensure that unions have to talk first and strike later under protected industrial action.

"What this policy promises are sensible, careful, prudent, collegial changes to a system," Mr Abbott said.

"These are incremental, evolutionary changes to improve a system based on practical problems not on some kind of ideological preoccupation."

However, more changes to IR laws are not off the table indefinitely, with Mr Abbott also planning to establish a Productivity Commission Review into the current act.

"Obviously, the Productivity Commission's recommendations will be public," he said.

"We want to see wide public debate of those recommendations.

"Any recommendations that the Coalition supports would be taken to a new election for us to seek a mandate for them."

Mr Abbott has emphasised his past role as workplace relations minister in the former government, saying he was "a minister who listened carefully to all sides of the industrial discussion".

Emma Griffiths says the policy is small-target politics from the Coalition: Compared to the bells and whistles of its only other policy launch, for the Coaliton's version of an NBN, this was a low-key, softly-softly affair. Mr Abbott's language clearly shows he's not looking for a fight on the IR front. He says these are "collegial changes", "incremental" and not based on any ideological underpinning. And what's in this policy is less important than what has been left out. The effort to avoid any real controversy shows just how heavily the burden of WorkChoices still hangs around the Coalition's neck and how desperate they are to unshackle themselves. Deliberately released just before the budget, this policy will largely be swamped by the fiscal and economic revelations next Tuesday when all attention will turn to the Government and the Opposition can again go on the attack.

"And, famously, I was one of the very few ministers around the Cabinet table who had some significant reservations about the former government's 2005 workplace relations changes."

WorkChoices came into effect in 2006 and changed many aspects of Australia's industrial relations scene, including dispensing with unfair dismissal laws for companies under a certain size and removing the "no disadvantage test" for workers.

Mr Abbott has been on the record saying there would be "no going back to the past" of WorkChoices.

The policy was successfully targeted by unions and the Kevin Rudd-led Labor opposition and has since been acknowledged by the Coalition as playing a major role in its defeat at the 2007 election.

Assurances from Mr Abbott that the policy promises "incremental, evolutionary changes based on practical problems - not on some kind of ideological preoccupation has failed to quell union criticism.

Sorry, this video has expired Opposition launches Industrial Relations policy ( ABC News )

Unions concerned

ACTU president Ged Kearney says she is deeply concerned about the push for greater access to individual flexibility arrangements.

"The Coalition have put individual contracts fairly and squarely at the centre of their industrial relations policies," she said.

"All workers in Australia know about AWAs [Australian Workplace Agreements], they know about individual contracts - what it means is they leave wages, they leave conditions, they lose any semblance of negotiating power in the workplace."

However, the Coalition's policy document states the Opposition would not reintroduce Australian Workplace Agreements.

Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten says the Coalition are 'repeat offenders' who cannot be trusted not to bring back features of WorkChoices.

"Tony Abbott's extreme workplace relations policies should send a shiver up the spine of every Australian worker," he said.

"They love individual contracts like ducks take to water.

"We saw what happened in WorkChoices - they said, 'oh, you can trust us, we'll put protections around them,' then what happened is we saw story after story, victim after victim, cutting penalty rates, cutting shift rates, changing people's start times, no notice on rosters.

"The Liberal Party cannot be trusted on workplace relations."

Sorry, this video has expired Shorten hits back at Coalition's IR policy

Business criticism

At the other extreme of the debate, business groups have criticised the policy for being too cautious.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says it will not produce the immediate boost of confidence small business and the labour market needs.

"There is not a lot to be excited about," ACCI chief executive Peter Anderson said.

"There's no indication that Australia's small business community would be left with anything other than the one-size-fits-all rules and the collective bargaining approaches that underpin the current laws.

"There's no change on the horizon to the unfair dismissal laws."

It is criticism Mr Abbott was expecting.

"I know there will be some who say there is some other agenda, I suspect there will be others who say look this policy doesn't go far enough," he said.

"I think this is a sensible way to bring Australians together, to let Australians know that.

"A Coalition government respects all of us and wants to work with everyone."