It may mean that Labor will have to sit out the next three years, but then have a real chance of being returned in 2016.
As the final sitting days of this parliament draw to a close, Labor is using its majority and a friendly senate to push through a raft of union-friendly bills.
These include laws giving unions greater right to access worksites and workplace bullying legislation that can be used to put pressure on employers or employees that unions find troublesome.
Unless Abbott has a massive win in the senate, which most political pundits believe is unlikely, he will not be able to undo these laws, regardless of the size of the majority he holds in the House of Representatives.
So far Abbott has boxed clever on industrial relations.
He has not even suggested a return to anything approaching the Workchoices regime that proved fatal to the Howard government in 2007.
That takes away the slogan Labor was itching to trot out: that a vote for Liberal would be a vote for Workchoices.
What Abbott has said he will do is simply what Labor promised and then failed to deliver.
He will bring back the Australian Building and Construction Commission to stop militant unions from unlawfully disrupting construction sites.
The Liberals also want to bring transparency to registered organisations. This will make union leaders accountable for how they spend union funds. This lack of accountability is held up as one of the key factors behind the Health Services Union imbroglio.
The paid maternity leave scheme is another thing difficult for Labor to attack, even if it does raise the conundrum of how taxes can be cut when there is such a scheme to fund.
So Julia Gillard, or perhaps the faceless men who installed her, have hatched a plan that pretty much crosses off every item on the unions’ Christmas list.
What Abbott will face is an environment where unions can walk into lunchrooms on sites, pretty much when they want. Employers will have to subsidise remote site visits for union officials. They also will have to consult with unions over proposed roster changes.
This all comes at a time when productivity in key Australian industries such as mining, and oil and gas are diminishing.
So Abbott will be required to bring in policies to improve productivity in Australian industry, but be hamstrung by the laws Labor already has put in place.
This productivity loss in a time of falling commodity prices and a resources sector shifting from a construction boom to an operational phase will likely lead to an economic downturn and rising unemployment.
There will be no real way for Australia to develop the competitive advantages it has created in oil and gas and mining technologies.
It sets a scene ripe for the return of a Labor government, quite likely under present IR Minister Bill Shorten.
No doubt Shorten would love to cast himself in the role of his idol Bob Hawke and institute his own version of the Wages Accord that paved the way for many of Australia’s productivity gains.
He will probably – and yes, that is a big call looking three years hence – have the power in the senate to make the changes, or more correctly, undo what he has had a hand in putting in place, needed to boost Australia’s productivity.
