Greens court Labor rebels on ABCC abolition
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The Greens are hopeful Labor backbenchers will support a bill to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).
The Greens and the construction union have criticised the Government over its election promise to keep the commission operating until 2010.
They say the extraordinary powers given to the commission by the previous government have been used to reduce the rights of workers.
Greens Senator Rachel Siewert says she thinks a number of Labor MPs will agree with a bill the Greens will put to the Senate later this week.
"What I'm hoping they do is they look at this bill and know that this sort of thing is the right thing to do now and it is unfair to put building workers through another couple of years of the oppressive 'Star Chamber' tactics of the ABCC," she said.
"I hope they feel extremely uncomfortable about the fact that they are going to be faced with a bill that actually proposes to do what the Government promised, and that is to put in place a fair industrial relations system in this country."
