A Charles Sturt University (CSU) political science academic says the Prime Minister has taken a significant risk in foreshadowing an early double dissolution election.

The Associate Head of the CSU School of Humanities and Social Sciences Associate Professor Dominic O'Sullivan (pictured) said the double dissolution of Parliament is intended to break the deadlock between the House of Representatives and Senate on re-establishing the Howard-era Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), and will make industrial relations a major election issue.

Professor O'Sullivan predicts the Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Turnbull, will seek to associate the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bill Shorten, with the alleged 'union thuggery' the ABCC would address.

"Mr Turnbull will place himself on the side of virtue, and will style Mr Shorten as too weak to take on his union 'mates' in the building industry," Professor O'Sullivan said.

"The ALP response is that the police are there to deal with criminality and the real burden on economic growth is the Prime Minister's 'mates' in the banking industry, which he will not submit to the scrutiny of a Royal Commission.

"The government's refusal to accept amendments to the ABCC legislation to give it powers to investigate corruption across the economy, in the style of the New South Wales ICAC, plays into suggestions the measure was, in fact, ideologically driven anti-unionism, with nothing at all to do with economic growth."

Professor O'Sullivan also noted the government's vulnerability in industrial relations, where the intention to scale back overtime penalty rates, and suspicion about a return to a 'Work Choices' industrial relations policy regime, undermine voter support.

"The government is vulnerable to its tax policy indecisiveness and the Prime Minister's wish to cease Commonwealth funding to public schools," he said.

"Having set the election agenda as one of industrial relations, the Coalition risks anti-union, pro-banking, and anti-public schooling perceptions emerging to polarise rather than unite as the election draws closer."