"When you add all these pieces together, it is a pretty bold re-imagining of the NSW industrial relations system." The NSW Business Chamber warned that Labor's proposed changes would add an extra layer of complexity to laws in NSW "which is bad for business and sends a signal to potential investors that NSW is a more complex regulatory environment in which to operate". Labor says that, if it wins government on March 23, it will establish a new Department of Industrial Relations and re-establish the industrial court of NSW. The Coalition government has an office of industrial relations within Treasury, which Labor says "gets smaller and smaller every year". A special unit in the department would be created to deal with problems in the construction industry, including the non-payment of subcontractors. Labor would also move to convert temporary or casual staff in the public sector other than senior executive service staff to permanent employment after two years.

Mr Searle said a future Daley government would expand the powers of the NSW Anti-Slavery Commissioner to establish protocols for businesses to follow to stamp out modern slavery in supply chains. Platform work would also be regulated under a new chapter that Labor would insert into the NSW Industrial Relations Act. The laws would define a gig worker and online platforms they use to work. The Industrial Relations Commission would be empowered to make orders for the gig workers to receive benefits including minimum rates of pay, superannuation, annual holidays and sick leave. The gig workers would also be eligible for workers' compensation if injured while working and online platforms would be required to provide insurance premiums for workers' compensation. Mr Searle said Labor would establish "a new mechanism to allow the NSW Industrial Relations Commission to quickly and fairly resolve disputes regarding gig workers".

Unpaid internships lasting more than two weeks would be banned unless they are part of a structured learning program or recognised qualification. Internship brokers would need to be licensed and high administrative fees would be targeted. Mr Searle said the NSW Industrial Relations Commission would be directed to set pay and conditions for internships of more than two weeks and that are not part of a structured learning experience on a similar basis to minimum conditions for apprentices and trainees. New laws to protect all workers in the public and private sectors from physical and psychological bullying would be enacted and a charter of rights introduced to ensure injured workers were treated fairly by employers, Safe Work NSW and insurance companies. Whistleblower protections would be extended to workers in the private sector "as far as constitutionally possible". "We will rewrite the current whistleblower protection legislation for public servants," Mr Searle said. "We will make it clear, easy to use with greater and better protections and extend that to the private sector as far as we can, recognising federal legislation."

NSW Business Chamber chief executive Stephen Cartwright said employers could face a "double jeopardy" if NSW laws clashed with federal legislation. "For the private sector, the power to regulate the workplace was transferred to the federal government decades ago, and there is a well-established protocol in this country that state governments should not try to regulate in the same space as the federal government as this risks conflicting or confusing laws that in some cases may be impossible to comply with," he said. "[For example] if the laws are conflicting or impose inconsistent obligations, then employers are facing 'double jeopardy'. "Making changes like this, just in NSW, will add a layer of complexity to the laws in NSW for businesses to manage, which is bad for business and sends a signal to potential investors that NSW is a more complex regulatory environment in which to operate." Mr Cartwright said that, if state governments regulate in the industrial relations space, NSW employers could face the prospect of seven different laws on the same subject matter.

"And that is crazy," he said. "Given the polls are suggesting a federal Labor win in May, the ALP in NSW, should it win next Saturday, should wait until the federal election is settled and then enter into dialogue with the next federal government to ensure that these issues are regulated once only at the federal level." Mark Goodsell, head of Australian Industry Group NSW, said industry was concerned about state governments and oppositions that "go their own way on regulation in areas that should be dealt with at the national level or that should be the subject of harmonised state laws". He said the introduction of anti-slavery legislation in NSW last year would create compliance problems and confusion for businesses because it was inconsistent with similar federal legislation. He said NSW Labor's plans to create an industrial relations court would be a "retrograde step" after the court was abolished and its functions transferred to state courts. "Apart from the likely huge cost, the proposal would reduce the focus on harmonisation of state and federal industrial and [work health and safety] laws," Mr Goodsell said.