Delay anti-union bills: ACTU

It says the Coalition has no mandate for its workplace agenda, which should be halted while MPs citizenship is unresolved.

ACTU President Ged Kearney.

The ACTU has called for the Coalition’s workplace legislative agenda to be put on hold until the citizenship crisis is resolved.

ACTU president Ged Kearney said today that five “anti-union” bills before the Senate should not be voted on until the public has confidence about which federal MPs are eligible to sit in federal parliament.

“They should not be voted on when we do not know how many senators even have a right to sit in the Senate,’’ she said.

Asked if she had any concerns about the legitimacy of Labor MPs, Ms Kearney said: “I have concerns about mostly the Malcolm Turnbull government but certainly all MPs need to show that they are legitimately there.”

The bills include proposed legislation designed to torpedo a planned merger between the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and the Maritime Union of Australia

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash is separately proposing tight regulatory controls on worker entitlement funds under a move that could deny unions $25 million a year.

The ACTU also wants the Senate crossbench to block proposed superannuation changes, warning they will reward the “appalling behaviour” of the banks by giving them greater access to workers’ retirement savings.

The government says it wants to strengthen the financial regulator’s powers to regulate funds; give workers the right to choose a fund if they are currently prevented from doing so by an enterprise agreement, and legislate for a minimum one-third independent directors, including an independent chair.

Ms Kearney said Coalition had “no mandate” for the five workplace bills so they should be halted until the citizenship crisis was resolved.

However, she said the same-sex marriage bill was different from the workplace bills as it would be in response to a $122 million survey.

“Once that is finished we would say it would be uncontroversial to act on the results of that survey,’’ she said.

Ms Kearney said unions would consider challenging the workplace legislation through the courts if the Coalition ignored the ACTU call and got the five bills passed by the Senate.

The union demand comes as more than a dozen conservative government MPs are preparing an alternative same-sex marriage bill to the one drafted by Liberal senator Dean Smith. The bill will have more protections for religious freedom than the one offered by Senator Smith, paving the way for a parliamentarian brawl.

Yesterday, Australians Conservative leader Cory Bernardi called for a delay in legalising same-sex marriage if the Yes vote prevails, declaring it more pressing to resolve the citizenship crisis engulfing parliament.

Senator Bernardi — who has been pushing for parliament to be suspended while the eligibility of all MPs is audited — said there were more urgent problems in the remainder of the sitting year than passing a bill to amend the Marriage Act.

“It is much more pressing to deal with the composition of the parliament to establish that it is actually constitutionally allowed to exist in its current status,” he told ABC radio.

Malcolm Turnbull today turned up the heat on Bill Shorten after the Labor leader refused to toe the line on the prime minister’s plan to end the citizenship saga engulfing parliament. Mr Turnbull accused the Opposition Leader of “not being fair dinkum” in his claims he wants to help solve the issue, saying their two-hour meeting yesterday was fruitless because Mr Shorten refused to make any detailed comments on the government’s proposal to force MPs to disclose their eligibility to the parliamentary register of members’ interests.

Mr Shorten insists MPs be given five days rather than the three weeks Mr Turnbull wants to clarify their citizenship status.

Nor is Labor prepared to have parliament recalled in the week before Christmas to consider the declarations of MPs.

“[Shorten] wants to exploit this issue, he wants to prolong that, he does not want to resolve it,” Mr Turnbull told the Seven Network, a day after the pair met to discuss the issue.

“He had no changes to propose, no wording. We spoke for two hours and he could not clarify or articulate the changes that he wanted.”

Mr Turnbull said he was committed to a full disclosure before Christmas, possibly too late for any referrals to the High Court. Mr Shorten argues there’s no point coming up with a parliamentary solution that didn’t pass the court. “That is causing chaos,” he told the Nine Network. Labor is arguing for a December 1 deadline.

In a testy exchange with Today host Karl Stefanovic, Mr Turnbull rejected suggestions he should be more focused on running the country.