But in a wide-ranging workplace relations debate at the National Press Club, Labor shadow minister Brendan O'Connor was quick to point out the government could struggle to pass the new laws - and that it won't be able to pass them in a joint sitting of the Parliament if it wins the election. Labor's employment spokesman Brendan O'Connor Credit:SMH Senator Cash and Mr O'Connor confirmed they would release more details of their industrial relations policies in the final fortnight of the campaign. And both major party's industrial relations spokespeople said they were open to the introduction of a new form of enterprise contract that could make it simpler for small business to hire workers - a recommendation of the Productivity Commission review of the Fair Work Act released last year - while Mr O'Connor said laws that made it simpler to conduct a strike ballot were also a possibility. Penalty rates, the restoration of construction watchdog the ABCC (the trigger for the July 2 double dissolution election), the dispute between the United Firefighters Union and Country Fire Authority volunteers in Victoria; that between the TWU and truck owner-drivers and a workplace deal between Coles and the Shop Assistant's union were all debated, too.

Explaining the adoption of 48 of 79 of the Heydon royal commission recommendations, Senator Cash said: "If a person repeatedly breaches Corporations Law, they get banned by the courts from being a company director. If a person repeatedly breaches the road rules, they get banned by the courts from holding a driver's licence. The same principle should apply in the workplace." And on secret payments between unions and employers - so-called "corrupting benefits" - Senator Cash said it was "an obvious conflict of interest for money or reward to be changing hands between an employer and a union at the same time that they are negotiating a workplace agreement". The new laws would apply to both unions and employers who did the wrong thing, she added. She pointed to a deal struck by the Australian Workers Union when Bill Shorten led it, examined by the royal commission, which saw workers at the Cleanevent company lose penalty rates while the company paid to keep that deal in place as the reason why the laws were needed. But Mr O'Connor said the government was "so incompetent it couldn't actually reflect the royal commission's recommendations in the legislation it provided to the Parliament when the Parliament was prorogued".

"That means that this legislation, even this announcement today, cannot be reflected in any bill that might go to any joint sitting if this government were to be returned." He accused the government of having nothing to say about IR - despite the double dissolution being called to pass the Registered Organisations and ABCC workplace bills. Follow James Massola on Facebook Follow us on Twitter