Government’s union-busting laws return to parliament after earlier defeat

The Morrison government's union-busting legislation has been reintroduced to parliament, less than a week after it was rejected by the Senate.

The government's union-busting legislation has returned to parliament. Source: AAP

Union-busting legislation has been reintroduced amid tense scenes in parliament, less than a week after the bill was defeated in the Senate.

Labor tried to delay Attorney-General Christian Porter's introduction of the bill, which has been slightly tweaked to include amendments from the Senate crossbench.

Mr Porter said the draft laws, which make it easier to deregister unions and ban officials for repeated law-breaking, would benefit workers and the economy.

Attorney-General Christian Porter arrives for Question Time in the House of Representatives. Source: AAP

"(The bill) is not going away because the problem isn't going away," Mr Porter told the lower house on Wednesday.

The attorney-general pointed to figures from the Australian Building and Construction Commission during his speech, saying there had been 400,000 court-ordered penalties related to unions over the last few months.

Workers had been spat on by union officials, he said.

Labor's industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke tried to delay the bill from being debated until mid-2022, saying the government couldn't accept that the draft laws had been defeated.

"What they want to present is effectively the ensuring double standards bill," he told the chamber.

"A bill that is part of this government's two-stage tactic.

The draft laws would make it easier to deregister unions and ban officials. Source: AAP

"Stage one: attack the organisations that defend pay and conditions. Stage two: attack the pay and conditions themselves."

Mr Porter is gearing up for a fresh round of consultation with crossbench senators.

He is prepared to make further amendments to win their support.

"Since the bill was voted on last week in the Senate, issues have been raised which were not raised with the government during consultations on the bill," Mr Porter said on Wednesday.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese said even with further changes, the bill would still represent an attack on ordinary workers.

Anthony Albanese during Question Time. Source: AAP

"The fact is this is not in the interests of working people," he told ABC radio.

"Every time this government sees a nurse or sees a teacher, what they see is a trade unionist who they deride as being a thug."

The coalition's "ensuring integrity" bill was rebuffed in the upper house last week, with One Nation opposing it in a humiliating defeat for the government.