The Turnbull government's election-triggering registered organisations bill looks set to finally pass the Senate.
The government on Monday night has forced the Senate to sit indefinitely until the legislation is voted on.
Crossbenchers Nick Xenophon and Derryn Hinch said they'd secured what could be the best whistleblower protections in the world in exchange for their support for the bill to establish a Registered Organisations Commission to oversee unions and their officials.
Senator Hinch insisted he was pro-worker and anti-corruption, arguing union members needed confidence their unions were working for their best interests.
"It is time I believe for a full-time independent regulator for this sector which has been racked with scandal," he told parliament.
"I don't see this is an attack on unions."
Senator Hinch said he didn't want to see a repeat of the scandals in the Health Services Union.
He said he was in hospital when reports emerged that disgraced former Labor MP Craig Thomson had misused HSU funds.
"I was actually lying in a hospital bed and watching members of his old union... doing menial tasks for about I guess $15 an hour.
"I watched a middle-aged European woman with a mop cleaning up after a burst colostomy bag and I thought at the time her union fees for the year would probably be around the $500 Thomson spent on one prostitute in one assignation."
Senator Xenophon read into Hansard an undertaking from the government to strengthen and enhance whistleblower protections in the legislation.
The government had agreed to support a parliamentary inquiry to examine whistleblower protections and compensation in the corporate and public sectors, to report back in June 2017.
If the report recommends stronger protections, the government will establish an expert advisory panel to draft legislation to implement reforms.
"These amendments if passed will see Australia go from some of the worst whistleblower protection laws in the world to arguably the best," he said.
