Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie has called on the Albanese government to not be "really, really stupid" and speedily go along with will of the Senate in passing non-controversial worker safety laws split off from Labor's omnibus workplace relations bill.
The Senate on Thursday has passed four reforms in four private senators' bills proposed by Senator Lambie and ACT independent David Pocock.
The changes in the bills offer better support for Commonwealth and ACT first responders with post-traumatic stress disorder, greater protections for workers experiencing domestic violence, expanding the role of the Asbestos Safety Eradication Agency to include prevention of silica-related diseases, and ensuring that employees at large businesses are eligible for redundancy payments if that business becomes insolvent and falls below the 15-employee threshold.
The omnibus bill remains under negotiation, while the private senators' bills now head to the House and Senator Lambie has warned the government to let them through Parliament before Christmas.
"If the Labor government wants to do that to first responders and those people with domestic violence and what is going on with solvency through business right now, because the way the economy is, and of course, the silicosis, they would be really, really stupid to do that before Christmas," she told reporters in Canberra.
"That would not be a smart gateway to play politics. It was a stupid way they did it in the first place. Surely they couldn't get dumber, dumb and dumber, surely."
Parliament will continue to debate Labor's larger industrial relations package.
More to come ...
