The government has vowed the China-Australia free trade agreement won't be revisited and any attempt to at the behest of unions and Labor would scupper the deal.
Trade Minister Andrew Robb said it was the biggest agreement China had ever signed with any developed country and is now under threat from a "corrupt" union.
Siding with the government was former Labor prime minister and ACTU head Bob Hawke who urged Labor and the unions not to go "backwards" on the issue.
"Talk of opposing it is just absolutely against Australia's best interests," he told The Australian on Friday.
The CFMEU has launched an advertising campaign against the deal, saying it will allow Chinese companies to bring in workers at the expense of Australian jobs.
The National Farmers Federation, Minerals Council and Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) are preparing to hit back with their own advertising campaign in support of the agreement next week.
Mr Robb, in China with a group of Australian chief executives to promote the deal, said the treaty was completed and signed and could not be unbundled.
"I am not negotiating with the opposition. I am happy to talk to them any time. I am very happy to provide as much clarification as the opposition and unions need about the details," he told Sky News.
Mr Robb said reopening any part could make the agreement "disappear".
"The Chinese will say it's been enough time, 10 years, six under Labor where it went nowhere. They will say we have bigger fish to fry and they will leave and we won't have a deal," he said.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said Labor wasn't unconditionally opposed to the free trade deal but there were loopholes which no amount of wishing away would remove.
He said Labor would negotiate with the government in the best interests of Australian jobs.
"Labor is committed to having better trade with China but we don't want to do it at the expense of Australian jobs," Mr Shorten told reporters in Perth.
Labor MP Kelvin Thomson, deputy chair of a parliamentary committee holding public hearings on the agreement, says the deal should not be supported as it stands.
ACCI chief executive Kate Carnell says it would be "catastrophic" if Labor blocked the agreement.
"Unfortunately we think the (CFMEU) ads are biting," she said.
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