The Rudd government, in which Ms Gillard held the industrial relations portfolio, reintroduced the laws along with a code which, if employers supposedly followed, the dismissed worker would not be able to lodge an unfair dismissal claim.

Under the code, a person feeling they had been "harshly or unjustly'' dismissed has 21 days to lodge an application. They must have been employed at the business for six months, or 12 months if it was a small business, defined as fewer than 15 employees.

They could be dismissed in the event of a business downturn.

But the Liberal MPs say the code has failed to quell time-consuming and costly claims, even when adhered to.

"[Ms] Gillard promised 'small businesses with fewer than 15 employees will not face an unfair dismissal claim from an employee who has not been employed for less than a year','' they write.

"That promise also hasn’t been realised. Unfair dismissal cases have exploded with a constant stream of around 15,000 cases before the Fair Work Commission at any one time.

"And that assumes the Fair Work Commission is considering all of them. Anyone in small business will argue otherwise. Yet there is no reliable data on settlement payouts or the number of disputes.

"Is it any wonder that the Small Business Ombudsman is calling for changes to the Unfair Dismissal Code to bring back some sanity."


The latter is a reference to a review of the code released earlier this month by Small Business Ombudsman Kate Carnell that found the code "is not delivering what was intended" and recommends 15 changes.

"The unfair dismissal jurisdiction within Australia's workplace relations system is commonly identified as a regulatory pain point for small businesses, which form the overwhelming majority of employing businesses," the review says.

"Code compliance is open to challenge with the effect that compliance can only be established via costly litigation.''

Messrs Falinksi, Wilson and Bragg also target the enterprise bargaining system that Labor acknowledged before the election was failing low-paid workers and promised to replace with pattern bargaining.

The Liberals want enterprise bargaining fixed.

"Enterprise bargaining has declined. There is currently one enterprise agreement that has not been completed after seven years of negotiation and legal argument. It has been before the Federal Court twice, and was last seen two years ago in the Fair Work Commission,'' they write.

"This wasn’t the simple process Gillard promised or imagined. Most parties would just walk away. And that is what is happening. And that is what we need to fix first: a system that works for Australian workers, not those who profit from industrial disputes."