Coalition to press ahead with legislation to revive ABCC

The Coalition will press ahead with legislation to revive the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

Mathias Cormann judged that passing contentious electoral reforms would “take all of the usual available government time in the Senate that week, and more”.

The Coalition will press ahead with legislation to revive the Australian Building and Construction Commission after Easter, Special Minister of State Mathias Cormann said today, fuelling speculation that the government has abandoned plans to use the bill as a double-dissolution trigger.

The ABCC legislation is a key plank in the plan to clean up the union movement and repeatedly touted as a potential double-dissolution election trigger by Coalition MPs, but no plans have been made to debate the bill in the final scheduled sitting week before the May 10 budget.

Under the constitution, a bill can be passed by a joint sitting of parliament after a double-dissolution election if the Senate twice “rejects or fails to pass” the proposed law in the previous term.

Senator Cormann, the deputy government leader in the Senate, judged that passing contentious electoral reforms would “take all of the usual available government time in the Senate that week, and more”.

“The legislation to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission remains a high priority for the government but in this next sitting week our highest priority is to secure passage for the Senate voting reforms,” he told Sky News.

“We have quite openly and transparently said … we won’t be able to deal with it in that week in March, but we will deal with it as soon as we get back after the Easter break.”

The ABCC bill is doomed in the current Senate with Labor, the Greens and a majority of crossbenchers all opposed to it.

Senator Cormann would not comment on whether the Senate’s reluctance to pass the legislation already constituted a “failure to pass” under the constitution.

George Williams, a constitutional law professor at the University of NSW, said the High Court ruled in 1975 that a mere adjournment of the Senate was not a “failure to pass” legislation.

“Chief Justice Sir Garfield Barwick stated that the Senate is entitled ‘to have a proper opportunity for debate’ and that section 57 is only satisfied when ‘the time has arrived for the Senate to take a stand’. If at that time the Senate ‘merely prevaricates’, it will have ‘failed to pass’ the bill.

“It needs to be shown that the Senate has had a reasonable opportunity for debate and has been able to conduct its customary processes of deliberation and inquiry,”

Anne Twomey, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Sydney, said the NSW constitution stated that a bill failed to pass if it is not passed within two months while the house is in session.

“Such a qualification does not exist in the Commonwealth Constitution, although it might give some guidance as to what is acceptable,” she said.

Professor Twomey noted that in 1951 the Labor Party attempted to delay a double-dissolution by referring a banking bill to a committee.

“Nonetheless, Menzies took it as failure to pass and convinced the Governor-General, William McKell, to hold a double dissolution on that basis … No one, however, challenged it in the High Court, so we never got a judicial view on whether it was a valid action or not.”

Greens leader Richard Di Natale said: “By our reading, the ABCC bill won’t be a potential double-dissolution trigger because it won’t be brought before the Senate for a second time before the budget.”

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash noted the government already had a double-dissolution trigger from a twice-defeated bill to establish a Registered Organisations Commission as an “enforcer and investigator” of trade unions.

Most crossbench senators, who are furious at the government and Greens for clinching a deal on Senate voting reform, say they “fully expect” a double dissolution election.

“We are definitely facing a double-d but it’s not a double dissolution, it’s Turnbull government dysfunction and deception,” senator Glenn Lazarus, of the Glenn Lazarus Team, declared.

“The senate should be aware in advance of what bills it needs to consider. The Turnbull government is ramming bills into and through the senate without any notice or order. It’s a disgusting misuse of power. Watch out Australia, absolute power corrupts.”

Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm said if the ABCC was not voted on before the Easter break the only reason for the government to call a double dissolution election would be to wipe out the crossbench.

“My view is they have no intention of a DD because they really have no agenda but you never know with this lot,” he said.

Family First senator Bob Day said the government was “entirely within its right” to go to a double dissolution election but not work with the Greens to vote through major reforms to Senate voting.

“I’ve dealt with legislation on its merits each and every time but, as they say, ‘no good deed goes unpunished’,” Senator Day said.

“Now they’re doing a deal with the opponents of legislation to get rid of the crossbench. Go figure.”

Senator Day says he “can’t wait” to start a High Court challenge against the government’s Senate voting reform bill, which scraps group voting tickets and stops minor party candidates from being elected through preference deals.

Bill Shorten said the Turnbull government was changing its mind “between morning and night”.

“They said this year the biggest issue was the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Now they don’t even care about that enough to push that issue through next week or the week afterwards,” the Opposition Leader said.

“Malcolm Turnbull is only concerned about Malcolm Turnbull. What we’ve got is a Prime Minister, when he rolled Tony Abbott, who has emerged as a big disappointment for Australians.”