In October 2016, the re-elected Turnbull government ramped up its efforts to pass the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013, which would re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission. The bill would be passed, in a gutted form, on November 30, and the new body would commence on December 2, 2016.

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash was the portfolio minister and, along with the Prime Minister, the face of the government's push to, as it endlessly insisted, restore the "rule of law" to the construction industry.