The Turnbull government’s intervention in Victoria’s long-running firefighters dispute has passed the Senate.
The bill passed without amendments late on Monday night, with the help of Senate crossbenchers – 37 senators voted in favour, 31 were opposed.
It has fulfilled Malcolm Turnbull’s election pledge, marking another win for the prime minister.
The legislation passed the Senate with support from One Nation’s senators (four), the Nick Xenophon Team (three), Derryn Hinch and David Leyonhjelm.
The independent senator Jacqui Lambie was the only crossbencher to vote against the legislation, joining Labor and the Greens.
Family First’s Bob Day signalled he had intended to vote yes but he wasn’t in the chamber for the third reading debate. His office later said he had been paired.
Turnbull said the legislation would protect volunteers because enterprise agreements would no longer be able to undermine the ability of emergency services to manage their own volunteer operations.
In August, Turnbull warned that Victoria’s Labor government was trying to hand control of the state’s country fire volunteers to the United Firefighters Union through a new enterprise agreement that clearly discriminated against volunteers and provided the UFU with an “unreasonable, unwarranted degree of control over volunteer operations”.
He said his proposed changes to the Fair Work Act – which passed the Senate on Monday night – would prevent that from happening.
He said it would also stop “similar union takeovers” from happening to volunteers of other firefighting and emergency services bodies covered by the Fair Work Act.
Pauline Hanson told ABC radio on Monday morning that she would support the government’s attempt to stop volunteer firefighters in Victoria from having to consult with unions when an enterprise bargaining agreement was being settled.
“I think it’s important that we do support the government’s position on this,” Hanson said. “I think it’s reasonable that we do so. I think the unions have overstepped the mark here.”
However, the legislation may be open to a legal challenge, with the industrial law expert Prof Andrew Stewart telling Guardian Australia in August the laws are arguably unconstitutional because they interfere in a state workforce issue.
