Senate blocks sympathy strike penalty hike

The Turnbull government's bid to increase penalties for so-called sympathy strikes from $750,000 to $10 million has been shot down in the Senate.

Senators have blocked a push to increase penalties for secondary boycotts more than 13-fold to $10 million.

All crossbenchers except One Nation senators joined with Labor and the Greens on Monday to vote down a Turnbull government bid to lift sanctions for so-called sympathy strikes from $750,000 to $10 million.

The measure, designed to bring secondary boycott penalties in line with other breaches of competition law, was stripped from an otherwise non-controversial suite of competition changes which cleared the Senate.