People-smugglers' jail terms in Greens' sights

THE Greens will use the first parliamentary  week to try to outlaw mandatory five-year jail terms for people-smugglers.

THE Greens will use the first parliamentary sitting week of the year to attempt to outlaw mandatory five-year prison terms for people-smugglers.

The minor party's immigration spokeswoman, Sarah Hanson-Young, is set to introduce a bill into the Senate as early as tomorrow to amend the Migration Act and remove the mandatory minimum sentences that judges across the country are forced to hand down to people convicted of people-smuggling offences. It follows calls from numerous judges to scrap the laws because young and poor Indonesian men often get dealt lengthy prison terms.

Senator Hanson-Young said the law needed to be changed because it was not working effectively to target the bosses of people-smuggling operations, instead penalising "those who have been tricked to do the kingpins' dirty work".

The Gillard government, meanwhile, faces a battle this week to get legislation through parliament to scrap the building industry watchdog and means-test the private health insurance rebate.

A bill to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission and create a new industry regulator with lesser powers will be debated in the House of Representatives on Thursday.

The Greens have indicated they were likely to support the bill but planned to move amendments to further soften the powers of the new regulator.

Greens workplace relations spokesman Adam Bandt last night said Labor would have to consider his amendments if it wanted to get its bill through parliament.

"I want to get rid of the Howard-era coercive powers in this legislation, or at least direct them towards fixing real problems, like sham contracting and exploitation of overseas labour," he said.

The ability of the Gillard government to replace the ABCC was in jeopardy, with key independent Rob Oakeshott indicating he was unlikely to support it.

"In an environment where construction is flat and where productivity should be the focus, I am struggling to work out how this contributes," Mr Oakeshott said.

He also said he hoped the move to replace the building industry watchdog was not being driven by the "large donations" to Labor and the Greens by the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union.

Labor will need to secure three of the six crossbenchers' support to rescue its budget surplus by applying a 30 per cent means test on the private health insurance rebate.

Bills relating to the rollout of the National Broadband Network will also be debated.