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.
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The Senate on Thursday has passed, with the Coalition's support and without vote, four reforms in four private senators' bills proposed by Senator Lambie and ACT independent David Pocock.
The reforms in the bills are 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."
Senator Lambie said the bill will benefit will thousands of Australians in the "years to come", while the crossbenchers have stated further work on silica is needed, pointing in favour of a future ban.
"I think we're gonna get advice and see if we can actually add an amendment to the bill that's coming forward, the IR one. Right and just see if it can be done. I think that that would be the smart way," Senator Lambie said.
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Both Senator Lambie and Senator Pocock have again criticised the government for packing up non-controversial reforms with a "monster" industrial relations bill, that they say was being used as leverage to pass the entire bill.
"I said to the government from the start, please do not make this an omnibus bill," Senator Pocock said.
"They've decided to do that. 20 different schedules. Four of them were uncontentious and it was news to the Australian Federal Police Association and others that the PTSD provisions would be included in omnibus bill.
"Well, we've done a split out the four things that have unanimous support. This didn't even go to a vote in the Senate. The entire Senate has endorsed these four schedules."
During debate over the bills on Thursday, Labor senator Louise Pratt argued against them, but said at one point that she accepted they would pass and "it's probably a good thing".
She said the Albanese government had a big job to do to "pick up the pieces" of industrial relations reform.
"I just want to remind and ask the crossbench .. we need to continue to work through these issues in good faith and not leave people behind on all the other mounting and importance issues," Senator Pratt said.
"We have a much bigger job to do here that does take our time and attention. Sure, let's do the low-hanging fruit. Let's do the easy things that are a no brainer."
"We have big problems in this area because the bargaining table is not fair. There are so many loopholes that we must fix."
Parliament will continue to debate Labor's larger industrial relations package.
Senator Lambie has decried the size of the bill.
"I don't forget we had two advisers taken off of us," she said. "Like I said, this is two kilo bill of paper and it is very difficult to work through and there are a lot of stakeholders in between doing our normal job in the Senate, sitting on an inquiry, and seeing all those stakeholders.
"Not only here, but in our time as well on the outside, making sure that we are there for our own states and territories, so people have access to us about other issues."
![Senator David Pocock. Picture by Keegan Carroll Senator David Pocock. Picture by Keegan Carroll](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/212131485/7faf7505-b3bd-41df-a6bc-7dc2ccf64c2b.jpg/r0_256_5000_3078_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)