The building industry watchdog's powers will be wound back to the "bare legal minimum" within days, as the Albanese government pushes ahead on its plan to scrap the body entirely.
Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke announced on Sunday that building code regulation changes will come into effect from Tuesday, before he introduces legislation later this year to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission.
"As of Tuesday, the ABCC, in its powers, will be pulled back to the bare legal minimum," he told ABC television.
"A lot of what it's been doing can appropriately be done by another regulator."
Mr Burke said some of the commission's "ridiculous rules" were a waste of taxpayers' money.
"We will no longer be spending taxpayers' money determining what sticker someone's allowed to put on their helmet, whether or not a safety sign has to be pulled down because it's got a union logo in the bottom corner, or what flag might be flying at a building site," he said.
"Those sorts of issues should never have been something for an official government regulator to be wasting taxpayers' money on, (and) as of Tuesday those offences are gone altogether."
When asked if rules on alcohol and drug testing on building sites would continue, Mr Burke said those rules were "really weird".
"The threshold for when they apply and when they don't isn't based on a safety concern," he said.
"It's based on, one, whether you're in construction, and, two, a formula of the extent of Commonwealth contribution relative to the value of the project, as though somehow that's a safety principle.
"These sorts of rules, to make sure that people are fit and ready for work, are just as important on a mining site as they are on a construction site."
