Battlers given a safety net As Howard backflips on IR

PRIME Minister John Howard today denied a new "fairness test" for workers was a backdown ahead of this year's federal election, calling it "fine-tuning" instead.

Mr Howard will outline formal assurances that workers earning up to $75,000 per year who trade away penalty rates, shift allowances, holiday pay or overtime in AWAs will not be worse off.

Due to come into force next Monday night, the new test will apply to all Australian Workplace Agreements and collective agreements submitted to the renamed Workplace Authority.

"Now that compensation (for trading away allowances) could take monetary form ... it might take the form in some cases of people offered access to a car park," Mr Howard said on Southern Cross radio.

"It's not retrospective and won't apply to any agreements already in place."

The Prime Minister said he had been thinking about finetuning the WorkChoices legislation for several weeks and denied he had done a backflip on industrial relations.

"Some will say that," he said.