Scott Morrison strong-arms union-busting bill through lower house into Senate

The Prime Minister rammed the bill through the lower house without debate so it can return to the Senate in 2020.

Scott Morrison in Canberra on Thursday. Picture: Kym Smith

Scott Morrison has moved to neutralise Labor’s victory in defeating his union-busting Ensuring Integrity bill, ramming it through the lower house on Thursday without debate so it can return to the Senate in 2020.

The move puts the Coalition’s industrial relations bill back on the political agenda at the start of the new year and gives the Prime Minister a second chance to win over key crossbenchers Pauline Hanson and Jacqui Lambie after his win over the medivac repeal.

The passage of the Ensuring Integrity bill without debate was ­attacked by Labor, which argued that no copies of the legislation were present, leading parliament to be briefly suspended.

Speaker Tony Smith corrected the record when the house resumed and noted that between 22 and 25 bills were in the chamber before the suspension.

The government then moved swiftly to bring on a vote, with the legislation passing by 75-65 votes.

Labor was gagged from speaking, with the Manager of Opposition Business, Tony Burke, objecting on the floor of parliament. He accused Mr Morrison of throwing a “prime ministerial tantrum” and showing “contempt for democracy”.

“You would have thought that members are allowed to make speeches,” he said.

“This is unprecedented.”

Anthony Albanese held a snap press conference, accusing the government of trying to avoid scrutiny and shutting down the democratic process.

“They run in to gag the debate. They refuse to allow anyone to speak to push through legislation, to what end? So that they can make a point that while they lost in the Senate last week, they won’t on the floor of the House of Representatives?

“We know they have a majority on the floor of the House of Representatives, but this is not, or should not be, a totalitarian state … Dissent and the right of people to represent their electorates have been shut down.”

Mr Albanese used question time to call on Mr Morrison to explain why he pushed the bill through the lower house, accusing him of being soft on the banks and unfairly tough on the unions.

Rejecting the claim, Mr Morrison said he introduced tough new laws as treasurer that ensured banking executives who did the wrong thing were held to account.