Senator Derryn Hinch has said the government has a “good chance” of passing the Australian Building and Construction Commission bill and promised to vote for it if amendments were made.
At a joint press conference with Nick Xenophon to trumpet their whistleblower amendments to one industrial relations bill, Hinch signalled that a separate agreement would pass the ABCC bill if the government protected subcontractors’ pay and changed how the the building code is applied.
On Tuesday Hinch and the Nick Xenophon Team are presenting the government and opposition with proposed amendments to the ABCC bill, some jointly agreed between them. Xenophon said a deal was not likely this week.
At 2am the registered organisations commission bill passed the Senate with One Nation, NXT and Hinch’s support after the government agreed to amendments to protect union whistleblowers.
Debate about the ABCC bill later resumed, with Hinch promising to vote in favour of it if amendments were made to security of payments legislation, such as forcing head contractors to hold money on trust.
He called for amendments to include incentives to take on apprentices, and that the building code not apply retrospectively – or at least only to apply to workplace deals struck in the past six months.
The code attached to the ABCC bill would apply to enterprise agreements struck after 24 April 2014, which gives it retrospective effect because it bars builders from government work based on deals struck before the code was in place.
“If the bill is not properly amended then I’m not afraid at all to vote it down,” Hinch said, labelling his approach “pro-worker and anti-corruption”.
Asked if the government should be confident the ABCC bill would pass, Hinch told the press conference: “If they treat it like they did yesterday they have a good chance of getting it through.
“If they treat it as waffle, they won’t. As it stands and after the way we were treated over this issue, it is looking pretty good.”
Xenophon said his party’s positions on the two industrial relations bills were separate and negotiations on the ABCC would continue.
He said NXT wanted security of payments legislation to prevent subcontractors missing out when principal contractors went broke or delayed payments, and for the building code attached to the bill to ensure that “Australian standard [construction] material is used in our buildings”.
“I can’t imagine we will come to a final position on that this week,” he said.
Senator David Leyonhjelm told Guardian Australia he was still in talks with the government over his vote on the ABCC.
Leyonhjelm had asked for reform to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act in return for his vote but now says “realistically the government can’t deliver that” as Labor, the Greens and some in the Coalition oppose it.
He said the government had come up with “a couple” of reforms to improve freedom to help sway his vote but refused to name them, quipping: “If I told you what they were I would have to kill you immediately after.”
The employment minister, Michaelia Cash, told a press conference on Tuesday she would not comment on ongoing negotiations with the crossbench except to say she was “very impressed” with the way they had approached the industrial relations bills.
In Senate question time, Cash said Australia could not afford “the lawlessness we continue to see in the building and construction sector”. She cited numerous industrial breaches by the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and fines issued by the federal court.
“It is our third-largest industry in Australia and we must do everything we can to ensure it continues to prosper and grow.”
Malcolm Turnbull praised Cash for passage of the registered organisations commission bill. The bill would benefit the economy because it “reduced the potential for corruption and abuse, and malfeasance”, the prime minister said.
“What you’ve seen here is legislation passed that will make it much harder for union officials to abuse the rights of their members [while] misusing their money.”
