The Turnbull government's leader in the Senate expects the upper house will be tied up with the Senate voting reform bill in the final three days of the autumn parliamentary sittings.
Attorney-General George Brandis has told Sky News he doesn't expect there will be time to deal with the legislation to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission, previously seen as a double dissolution trigger for an early election.
Parliament will sit on March 15-17, the final parliamentary business until the May 10 budget.
Manager of government business in the Senate Mitch Fifield said the coalition had done a deal with the Greens for "extra hours" in the Senate to push through the voting reform.
The deal meant the ABCC bill would be brought on in the following sitting week, he said.
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"Part of that arrangement is that we can only deal with bills that (the Greens) are comfortable with," he told ABC on Sunday.
The government remained committed to passing the bill, he said.
