Crossbench senator says not debating bill would make it ‘quite awkward’ to convince governor general to dissolve both houses on basis of bill’s rejection

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Motoring Enthusiast party senator Ricky Muir, says he will attempt to bring on debate on industrial relations legislation in the Senate in a bid to head off a possible double dissolution election.

The government has said the Senate crossbench reluctance to pass legislation to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) amounts to a possible trigger for an early election.

But the legislation has dropped off the list of bills to be debated this week – the last scheduled sitting week before the budget – as the government fast-tracks legislation to reform Senate voting laws instead.

Double-dissolution election remains 'a clear option', says Malcolm Turnbull Read more

Muir will bring on a motion on Tuesday to suspend debate on voting reforms in order to debate the ABCC bill.

“I’m handing the ABCC bill to them on a silver platter so we can debate this this week, and I think that’s what the government should be focusing on,” he told ABC Radio on Monday.

“If the government does vote against this motion, it does raise the question of how serious it was to them,” he said.

Muir said failing to debate the bill will “make it quite awkward” for the government to convince the governor general to dissolve both houses on the basis that the ABCC legislation was rejected or did not pass.

“I’m offering for them to be able to debate their cornerstone legislation,” he said.

A double dissolution election would dissolve both houses of parliament, forcing all senators to recontest their seats. Muir, who earned just a fraction of the primary vote but won his seat based on complex preference swap deals, would be at risk of losing his Senate spot if a double dissolution election goes ahead.

But Muir insists he is not bringing on debate on the ABCC bill to save his own skin.

“The debate process that it has been through has been very token at best. We should be debating this in detail,” he said. “If a country boy from Gippsland is able to come up with amendments, it shows that the bill wasn’t as thought through as it should be.”

The independent senator, Nick Xenophon, backed Muir’s call to debate the ABCC.

“They are both very important pieces of legislation and we [the Senate] should sit extra hours to deal with the ABCC and Senate voting reform,” he said. “I’ve packed enough clothes to be here at least till next Sunday night or even Monday morning. So I’m ready.”

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, last week issued a stern warning to the crossbench on the bill.

“If they vote for those bills then there would be no question, we wouldn’t even be talking about the possibility of a double dissolution,” he said. “It is clearly an option, and it is something that the government considers, but the way to take that option away is for the senators to pass those bills.”

Muir said he did not respond well to those kinds of threats, saying that union leaders who spoke to employees in such a way would be reprimanded.

The former government leader in the Senate, Eric Abetz, has blamed Labor for failing to pass the ABCC bill.

“The reason they aren’t voting for it is because they get these corrupt rivers of gold from the CFMEU,” he told ABC Radio. “The simple fact is that the Labor party could have this on the [Senate voting] list if they indicated support for stamping out corrupt officials and corrupt bosses from the building industry.”

The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, agreed.

“The only reason we are having this discussion is because the crossbenchers and Labor are refusing to support legislation that would prevent corrupt unions and corrupt union officials from carrying out their unlawful activities, as identified by the royal commission,” she said.

A leading constitutional lawyer has told Guardian Australia that a double dissolution on the ABCC bill is possible in spite of the government not bringing it forward for debate.

The Coalition negotiated a deal with the Greens to extend sitting hours in the Senate this week in order to pass Senate voting reforms, but the deal excludes debate on other legislation like the ABCC.



“We made it clear we don’t support extending hours to do anything other than debate the important issue of Senate voting reform and we won’t do anything to bring on the ABCC legislation,” Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, told ABC TV. The Greens will not be supporting Muir’s debate motion on Tuesday.

Family First senator Bob Day, whose seat is also in danger under a double dissolution election, said the Liberal party and the Greens are “formally joining forces to rid the Senate of minor parties and independents” by doing a deal to pass reforms.

“Twenty years of campaigning for industrial relations reform and $46m worth of taxpayer money on the Heydon royal commission are being cast aside in order to consummate this marriage,” he said.

Day has pledged to challenge voting reforms in the high court if the deal goes ahead.

Abetz has written to the Liberal party president, Richard Alston, expressing concern over proposed preference deals between the Liberals and the Greens in New South Wales and Victorian seats.

“I think it will cost us votes if we were to go down that track,” he said. “The way you allocate preferences says a lot about what you as a party stand for and what matters to you.”

He said “great luminaries” of the party like Robert Menzies tackled the extreme left and “would never countenence doing a deal” with the Greens.

Such “transactional allocation of preferences” in the past are part of the reason the Senate crossbench is in “disrepute” now, Abetz said.

The government has two other triggers apart from the ABCC – the abolition of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the strengthening of union governance through the Registered Organisations bill.