The nation’s biggest employer groups, including Master Builders, the Business Council of Australia, the Minerals Council, the National Farmers Federation and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, have banded together to fight the legislation aimed at labour hire companies.

The dispute has been raging for years in the Queensland coal fields, particularly at BHP mines, where the unions have been fighting a legal battle in which workers receive different conditions if they are employed by a labour hire company compared with a permanent employee of the company.

It was also an issue Labor campaigned on.

BHP has claimed the laws would cost it about $1.3 billion.

The Federal Government has yet to produce the legislation and Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke has said it was unclear how BHP could make such a claim without seeing legislation.

The Minerals Council said the laws would lead to lower wage growth and fewer jobs.

“It means by law, employers will have to pay workers with little knowledge or experience exactly the same as workers with decades of knowledge and experience,” the Minerals Council said.

“It means by law, you cannot earn better pay by working harder or longer, if your colleague does not share your ambition or work ethic.”

National Farmers Federation chief executive Tony Mahar said the change would create red tape for farmers who “don’t have lawyers or an HR department”.

Business groups also said it would deny workers the flexibility and take away the ability to negotiate.

However, the Government’s consultation paper said the proposed laws sought to address the limited circumstances in which host employers used labour hire to deliberately undercut the bargained wages and conditions set out in enterprise agreements made with their employees.

It’s guiding princples in the consultation paper were that business should have access to labour hire for genuine work surges and short-term needs and labour hire workers should be paid at least the same as directly engaged workers doing the same job.

“The Government’s Same Job, Same Pay measure seeks to address the limited circumstances in which host employers use labour hire to deliberately undercut the bargained wages and conditions set out in enterprise agreements made with their employees,” it said.

The Albanese Government is moving into other areas and has started an attack on the exploitation of visa workers.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said one in six recent migrants to Australia were paid less than the minimum wage.

They would release on Monday legislation to protect people being exploited in the workplace and “penalise unscrupulous employers”.

The ministers said the laws would make it a criminal offence to coerce someone to breach the conditions of a visa; introduce laws to stop employers from further hiring people on temporary visas where they have exploited migrants; increase penalties and new compliance tools and repeal a section of the Migration Act which it said actively undermined people from reporting exploitative behaviour.