Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's plan for a productivity pact is just political trickery, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says.
Mr Rudd wants a pact between business, unions and the federal government, which would mirror the Prices and Income Accord struck 30 years ago by the Hawke government.
Unveiling the plan at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday, Mr Rudd said the pact would form part of a national agenda to boost Australia's competitiveness.
But Mr Abbott said the proposal was just talk.
"What changes is he going to make to improve the productivity of this country?" he told reporters in Melbourne on Thursday.
"What tax cuts has he announced, what regulatory cut has he announced, what workplace relations change has he announced?
"It's just more flim-flam from someone who is the master of flim-flam, but very poor at actually making the changes that Australia needs."
Earlier, Mr Rudd said he will broker a pact between business, unions and the Labor government to boost Australia's productivity.
The pact would be underpinned by a new national competitiveness agenda based on seven reform areas, including ways to lower power prices, and smooth the transition from mining to non-mining led growth.
"The bottom line is we've got to get around the table and get talking more effectively," Mr Rudd told the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday.
At the centre of the pact would be a common agreement to lift the rate of annual productivity growth from its existing level of 1.6 per cent to two per cent or better.
Mr Rudd's plan drew comparisons with the landmark prices and income Accord struck between unions and the Hawke Labor government 30 years ago which help expand the national economic pie.
While he was not foreshadowing a new 1980s Accord-style deal, Mr Rudd's competitiveness agenda would be based on "do-able" reforms and offset "blind adversarialism" between unions and business.
"It's a better way to go that just through bricks at each other," he said.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the pact proposal was just talk.
"It's just more flim-flam from someone who is the master of flim-flam, but very poor at actually making the changes that Australia needs," he told reporters in Melbourne.
Since Mr Rudd was returned as prime minister on June 26, he has held talks with the Business Council of Australia (BCA) and the ACTU to lay the groundwork for seven broad policy reform areas.
The areas include electricity price regulation, labour market rigidity, business productivity, business regulation, education and training, national infrastructure and small business conditions.
High on the agenda was power prices, which Mr Rudd said were too high by global standards.
"But before you all start reaching for your revolver on the carbon price, let's be rational about this - the carbon price at present contributes less than 10 per cent to national electricity prices," he said.
The primary reason for electricity price hikes was national electricity regulation, which allowed excessive rates of return for publicly-owned transmission and distribution utilities, Mr Rudd added.
On the labour market, Mr Rudd pointed to "unintended rigidities".
"What I have discussed with the BCA, the ACTU and (employment) minister (Bill) Shorten is how we can harness a greater spirit and practice of industrial cooperation to produce better outcomes for us all," he said.
"A good place to start could be in respect of large greenfields projects, where large numbers of Australians are employed and which represent significant levels of investment.
"We need to make them work, and work well."
But Mr Rudd said productivity outcomes did not lie "exclusively with the labour market".
"In fact, some bad industrial outcomes for some major projects can be the result of bad management decisions rather than union hostility," he said.
Mr Rudd also called for state and federal business regulatory regimes to be streamlined.
