Labor elder statesman Martin Ferguson says the ALP should support the return of the Coalition's construction watchdog, industrial relations reforms and warned Australia's high labour costs and low productivity risk billions in revenue.
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In comments that will embarrass Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and ramp up political pressure on Labor to pass workplace law changes through the Senate, the former Rudd and Gillard government minister and ACTU president belled the cat on the Coalition's government's ''modest'' reforms to Fair Work laws.
Mr Ferguson's intervention comes as the Coalition introduced a raft of changes to the Fair Work laws to the Parliament on Thursday that tighten right-of-entry rules for unions, allow employees to trade penalty rates for more flexible hours and close so-called ''strike first, talk later'' loopholes.
In a speech in Perth on Friday, the now chairman of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association said complacency threatened 23 years of uninterrupted growth and that he was pleased ''sensible'' industrial relations reform was on the agenda.
While the future of gas investment had been ''all blue sky'' three years ago, he said billions in export revenue and taxation were at risk because of over-regulation.
''High labour costs and low productivity are an unsustainable mix,'' Mr Ferguson said. ''And therefore elements of the Fair Work Act must be looked at.''
Mr Ferguson said the Coalition's plan to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission should be seen as a step that would encourage investment in Australia.
''Rather than seeing the ABCC as a tool that allows one side to get an upper hand over the other in some never-ending ideological skirmish, it should be seen for what it was: a mechanism that holds both sides to account and which can help deliver projects on time and on budget,'' he said.
''As the son of a bricklayer, I know a thing or two about the building industry.
''But it is time that some in today's union leadership recognised that their members' long-term interests are aligned with their long-term job security.''
Labor and the union movement are implacably opposed to the ABCC, which was introduced by the former Howard government after the Cole royal commission on the building industry and then abolished by the Gillard government.
The Abbott government argues the restoration of the ABCC is necessary to crack down on lawlessness and corruption in the building industry. In recent months, Fairfax Media has carried a series of reports linking the construction union and building industry figures with organised crime, extortion and corruption, helping to trigger a royal commission.
Mr Ferguson singled out the militant Maritime Union for a short-sighted approach to bargaining over pay and conditions as it sought to ratchet up wages and conditions for new ''greenfields'' projects and called for longer-term agreements to ensure major projects were delivered.
In Parliament, Leader of the House Christopher Pyne said the government's bill would assist businesses that faced excessive workplace visits from unions when employees were not union members, ensure good faith bargaining took place and ensure greater flexibility.
