Union-busting bill vote delayed

The Ensuring Integrity Bill vote won’t happen on Thursday as key Senate crossbenchers decline to back the proposed laws.

Attorney-General Christian Porter. Picture: AAP

The Morrison Government will delay putting its union-restricting Ensuring Integrity Bill to a Senate vote after failing to convince key Senate crossbenchers to back the proposed industrial relations laws.
Attorney-General Christian Porter confirmed that the bill would not be put up for a vote on Thursday, leaving the government two weeks of Senate sittings from November 25 to get the bill passed this year.

READ MORE: Senate delay for union-busting bill | Porter plan to push bill

The government had hoped to bring on the bill, which makes its easier to deregister unions and ban union officials, for a vote this week.
But Mr Porter was unable to secure the support of One Nation or Jacqui Lambie who have expressed reservations about the bill. With Centre Alliance set to back the bill, the government needs either the support of One Nation or Senator Lambie to get it through the Senate.

Jacqui Lambie. Picture: Kym Smith

Pauline Hanson. Picture: AAP

While the government promotes the construction union and its officials as the prime targets of the bill, Senator Lambie said the changes made it too easy to deregister unions and ban officials representing nurses, teachers and firefighters for minor breaches.
Senator Pauline Hanson said she was sceptical about the demerit points system that would allow the Registered Organisations Commission to apply to deregister unions or ban officials if they reached different penalty unit thresholds for breaches of the law.
Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick, who proposed the points system, said officials would face bans if they committed multiple minor breaches but the ACTU maintains unions could be shut down and officials axed for paperwork breaches.
Mr Porter said on Thursday that he was confident the government was close to securing support for the bill.

"The activities of the CFMEU are putting a financial burden on all taxpayers, with their law-breaking business model adding millions of dollars to the cost of vital infrastructure projects like the construction of roads, schools and health services," he said.
"The bill does nothing to impede the legitimate and valuable work of unions in representing their members. It simply requires that unions and employer associations operate within the law.
"Where they don’t, the bill provides a mechanism for the independent court system to determine whether action should be taken against individual officials or the registered organisation."
He said ACTU claims that unions would be deregistered for minor paperwork offences was "absolute nonsense".