Prime Minister John Howard says the government's workplace relations reform advertising campaign will run this weekend - instead of September.
The government has been stung by an $8 million union advertising blitz warning workers they could be sacked or forced on to casual work under reforms which include an overhaul of unfair dismissal laws.
Two opinion polls this week showed coalition support slipping, with one poll finding 60 per cent of respondents are opposed to the industrial relations changes.
Mr Howard has accused unions of scaremongering.
But, he said, he anticipated the reforms, expected to be implemented in September, would get a negative response.
"You always get that when you are proposing something that's important and something that is for the long term benefit of the country ... a negative reaction in the first instance," Mr Howard told reporters today.
"This happened with the GST.
"You always get this and the fearmongering gets the early headlines.
"I expected this and I expect it will go on for some time but when the reforms are through parliament people will see that the fearmongering has been wrong and realise they will not be worse off in the long run."
He said, in contrast, the government's advertising campaign would be fact-based.
"The sort of campaign that we'll see at the weekend I expect ... (will be) simple fact," Mr Howard said.
Now it has full control of the Senate, the government is preparing to overhaul the nation's industrial relations system.
Proposed changes include exempting businesses with less than 100 employees from unfair dismissal laws, and creating a single national industrial relations system.
Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews last weekend said the government hoped to introduce the changes in September or October and confirmed the package would be supported by a government advertising campaign.
But Mr Howard today said the print newspaper advertising campaign, rumoured to be worth $20 million dollars, would start this weekend.
He declined to confirm how much it cost taxpayers, saying only it was "a reasonable amount".
But whatever the amount, he said it was justified "because people are entitled to know what is in a new policy change that might affect them".
Mr Howard denied he was going back on his election promise in 1996 that no Australian would be worse off under his government.
"I haven't gone back on that," he said.
"What I've said is I'm not going to give a specific guarantee in relation to every individual in the community."
Mr Howard said he expected the public would make up its own mind about the reforms.
"In the end, people decide these things not on the basis of advertising but on the basis of their own assessment of the facts," he said.
"You should never overestimate the power of advertising. The justness of the cause in the end decides."
The prime minister also said the reforms would help keep jobless rates down.
"There is a lot of economic evidence around already," Mr Howard said.
"I invite you to have a look at the facts, that the countries in the industrialised world that have the most highly regulated labour markets are those with the highest levels of unemployment."
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