Legislation to abolish the tribunal that sets truck drivers’ minimum pay rates will be introduced into the Senate before both houses of Parliament are dissolved in a potential double dissolution election, the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has confirmed.

The Senate’s first order of business when it resumes on Monday will be to debate separate legislation on reestablishing the building industry watchdog. Turnbull has warned that if that legislation is shot down, he will call a double dissolution.

On Sunday Turnbull confirmed that legislation to abolish the road safety remuneration tribunal would be introduced before parliament was dissolved.

When asked by reporters if the bill to abolish the tribunal would go ahead even if the ABCC bill was blocked, the prime minister replied: “Yes. The answer is yes.

“They’ll be presented in the course of this week.”

“It is in the Labor party’s hands,” the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, added. “We are not the ones holding this up, they are.”

Turnbull, Joyce and the employment minister, Michaelia Cash, spoke at a rally for truck owner-drivers, who say the tribunal’s minimum pay order will put them out of business.

Labor set up the tribunal when in government, saying setting minimum pay rates would stop truck drivers from engaging in risky practices in order to expedite delivery times.

“When truck drivers are not paid a safe rate, they are left with no choice but to skip on maintenance, speed and drive while fatigued, or risk not being able to keep a roof over their family’s heads,” the New South Wales secretary of the Transport Workers Union, Michael Aird, said. “The only people who will win are big transport clients like Coles, Westpac, BP and others who will continue to get away with paying below what it actually costs to safely transport their freight.”

Turnbull said it was “spurious” to link safety and pay, and accused the Labor party of setting up the tribunal as a “recruiting tool” for the TWU.

“What this tribunal was, as you know, essentially a pretext. Safety was used as a means of undermining independent, family-run businesses at the expense of a big union,” he said.



The government has the numbers in the Senate to abolish the tribunal, despite Labor opposing the move.

The opposition’s employment spokesman, Brendan O’Connor, on Sunday indicated that the opposition would be open to freezing the minimum pay order to give the government a chance to amend the tribunal so owner-drivers were not disadvantaged.

“We would examine those issues with a view to improving the order,” he told Sky News. “I’m, in principle, willing to delay the order. We may well consider the legislation proposed by the minister for employment, but I’d like to spend some further time talking to the affected parties before we precisely make a decision on the legislation.”

Cash said that was a distraction. “Mr Shorten is only supporting a delay, because the TWU itself understands that it has made a massive mistake with this pay order,” she said. “A delay does not do anything for owner-drivers other than delay the pain. It will reinvigorate on 1 January 2017.”

In what felt like an election campaign, the prime minister and employment minister told truckies at the protest that the only way to ensure that the tribunal did not come back “bigger than ever” was to vote for the Coalition.

The crowd was receptive to that suggestion. “You help us and we’ll help you,” one demonstrator replied.