David Pocock has given the strongest indication he will sink Labor's industrial relations package as it stands, declaring its plans "too big an impost" on small businesses.
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But a leading economist says Australians will not accept big businesses "crying poor" during a cost-of-living-crisis, accusing the private sector of running a "terribly alarmist" scare campaign.
Senator Pocock is likely to hold a veto over the legislation, and Labor has flagged an extension to the final sitting fortnight of 2022 to cram its agenda through.
The independent senator for the ACT has called for more time to mull the bill's most contentious element, the "single-stream" of multi-employer bargaining, arguing the rest should be passed immediately.
In a concession earlier this month, Labor exempted businesses with fewer than 15 employees from facing single-stream bargaining.
But in a statement on Monday evening, Senator Pocock indicated he would vote against the legislation unless that threshold was raised further.
"I appreciate the argument put forward by the ACTU and others that your rights at work should not be determined by the size of your employer," he said.
"The balance of evidence provided to me suggests that multi-employer bargaining will be too big an impost on smaller businesses, and therefore the threshold for inclusion in the non-voluntary streams needs to be higher."
Labor is resisting calls from the crossbench to split the bill, which would leave parliament to thrash out its contentious elements next year.
'Not fit for passage'
Senator Pocock delivered his statement as business groups launched an eleventh-hour bid to have the package watered down or ditched entirely.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry ramped up its campaign with an open letter to parliamentarians on Monday, warning "new rules and red tape" would threaten jobs and leave businesses in jeopardy.
ACCI chief executive Andrew McKellar said it was impossible to put a figure on potential job losses, but claimed more than 90 per cent of businesses surveyed had expressed concern over the bill.
Mr McKellar said ACCI would accept a pared back bill, including changes to multi-employer bargaining in low wage sectors, and allowing employees to disclose their incomes to colleagues.
"Those parts of the legislation are much less controversial, and you could get a result in the Senate on most points," he told ACM, publisher of this masthead.
"[But] if it was to be considered as it stands, then really it's not fit for passage."
Proposed changes to the "single-interest" stream, which would allow workers in the same industry and similar locations to collectively negotiate, were a non-starter for business, Mr McKellar said.
He rejected suggestions from Finance Minister Katy Gallagher that the changes would work best in tandem.
"The only way to deal with that at this stage is to carve [the single-stream change] out and take it away ... this is a cobbled-together bunch of disparate ideas. It doesn't hold together as a cohesive unit," he said.
'Terribly alarmist'
But Greg Jericho, the Australia Institute's employment and fiscal policy director, rejected suggestions the bill had been rushed, saying industrial reform was "long overdue" after years of inaction.
Dr Jericho branded the business community's rhetoric as "terribly alarmist", saying Australians grappling with a spiralling cost-of-living crisis would be turned off by big companies "crying poor".
"We believe it will lead to stronger wage growth, which is something that employer groups say they want, until it actually comes to the moment of doing anything that might lead to it," he said.
But he accepted the laws needed to be monitored over time, describing Senator Pocock's call for a statutory review as "quite a good idea".
"Splitting the bill would be the wrong way to go about things," he said.
Australia was already a particularly restrictive environment for strikes, and Dr Jericho did not expect any "massive" upswing in industrial action resulting from Labor's package.
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He stressed the bill was mainly targeted at low-pay care sectors, like aged care, where workers' attachment to their patients made them less likely to strike.
"They care about their clients and they realise that withholding their labour is going to affect them, which is not something they wish to do," he said.
"But especially towards the low-paid side of things, this bill is seeking to at least enable them to bargain jointly, and in a sense overcome the barriers there at the moment ... all this talk of going back to the 1970s is just absurd."
Independent senator Jacqui Lambie, who also wants a split bill, conceded parliamentarians were "all run off our feet" after a gruelling election year, but warned Labor against a battle of attrition with the crossbench.
"If you think you're going to wear me down ... [you] don't not know Jacqui Lambie by now. They are dreaming," she said.