Lower House battle looms as split IR reform bill pushed through Senate

Independent Senators Jacqui Lambie and David Pocock have successfully pushed four industrial relations reforms through the Senate, setting up a Lower House battle against a federal government still hoping to contain its contentious IR reforms in one bill.

A Senate committee report on the government’s Closing Loopholes bill is due in February next year, meaning the omnibus package cannot be passed into law until early 2024 at the earliest.

Lambie and Pocock argued that non-contentious measures contained in the bill should be carved out and passed into law beforehand, instead of being bogged down in the debate over its more controversial elements.

Their efforts succeeded in the Senate on Thursday morning, as Lambie and Pocock, with backing from the Coalition, One Nation, and other independents, earned enough support to split off and pass the measures in the Upper House.

The four measures to earn Senate approval include the closing of an anomaly in the small business redundancy scheme, which currently allows failing medium-sized businesses to downsize to the point where their employees are no longer eligible for redundancy payments.

Other measures to earn Senate support include workplace protections for survivors of family and domestic violence, expanding workers’ compensation for employees experiencing PTSD, and elaborating Australia’s asbestos safety regime to also cover silicosis and other silica-related diseases.

Pocock today said it was appropriate to carve off those measures, while accusing the government of “poor form” by opposing their separation.

“Please – can we put politics to one side and get some good policy through the parliament with multi partisan support that will help [Australian] workers,” he said on social media.

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke countered the Senate crossbenchers on Thursday, saying the federal government had never acted to delay their passage into law.

“We want them all passed as soon as possible,” Burke said.

“The Government remains committed to delivering on our election promise to close the loopholes that are undermining wages.”

The split-off bills will now be carried for a vote in the House of Representatives, where the federal government will weather fresh pressure over the IR reform package.

However, there are no indications the government will ditch its original plan of passing the package in one go.

Burke said the government will “continue to pursue its own legislation to protect workers and lift wages”.

The Senate victory comes after business representatives organisations, including the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, voiced their support for the four non-contentious measures.

However, COSBOA and other representative groups have expressed deep misgivings about the broader bill, which seeks to crack down on the misuse of labour hire, establish a new definition of casual work, and underwrite new standards in the gig economy, among other changes.