The Albanese government says it won’t let an advertising blitz stop it overhauling Australia’s workplace laws, in a bid to get stagnant wages moving.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is launching a campaign opposing the government’s industrial relations bill, arguing it will cost workers jobs rather that lift wages.

The bill has already passed the lower house and will be debated in the Senate in the next fortnight. The government wants it to become law by by the end of the year.

Labor’s senate leader Katy Gallagher said the fierce opposition to the bill wouldn’t shake the government’s belief it was the right course of action.

“We won’t be distracted by an advertising campaign and we will continue to advocate on behalf of working Australians and getting wages moving,” she told the ABC.

“We’ll fight for this legislation on its merits and we’ve been doing that since the legislation has been released … where people spend money on advertising campaigns is their decision, some will argue money could be better spent on other things, but that is their decision.

Senator Gallagher said she was hopeful the Senate would sit two extra days – Fridays this week and next – to ensure the bill passed before the end of the year.

Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie, who has been a critic of the legislation, again suggested the government split the bill to quickly pass changes that had broad agreement.

“We [can] come back to the other 10 or 15 per cent of it after Christmas, simple as that, it won’t make a goddamn difference to rising wages,” she told Nine.

“Small business did it tough through COVID … I do not want to slam them with unintended consequences that may come out of this bill.”

But Senator Gallagher said that separating contentious elements like multi-employer bargaining defeated the entire point of the bill.

“When it is all about getting the bargaining system working, and particularly for low-wage industries to make sure that we’ve got the system in place, if you take out a reasonably sized piece of that system, what you’re trying to achieve with the bill will be compromised,” she said.

Liberal frontbencher Dan Tehan said having the bill scrapped – rather than split – was the opposition’s priority.

“They’ve got no mandate for it, and there is nothing which shows in any way it will do what the government is hoping for it to do,” he told Sky News.

“It was cooked up before the job summit to make sure that the union movement stayed quiet … this is about Labor looking after their union mates at the expense of small and medium-sized businesses.”

-AAP