Malcolm Turnbull may be wishing to sew up a sack-full of election promises before heading into the Christmas break, but the final parliamentary sitting week of the year is unlikely to be a smooth run.
In a week the prime minister will be hoping to rubber stamp the re-establishment of the building watchdog and get a result over the controversial backpackers tax, the government will find itself again defending George Brandis who the Greens have labelled the "trouble-prone attorney-general" .
The Greens will be calling for a a Senate inquiry into Senator Brandis when the upper house sits on Monday after he reportedly struck a deal with WA to allow the state to claw back $1 billion from Alan Bond's collapsed Bell Group earlier this year rather than the commonwealth.
The key measure the government will be wanting to focus on is the Australian Building and Construction Commisson, which had been a trigger for this year's double dissolution election.
Restoring the rule of law in the building sector would increase productivity and the ability of people to work in the industry, it says.
"Obviously it would be an enormous boon to get this legislation passed this week because it would mean on balance it's been a successful year," former prime minister Tony Abbott told Sky News on Sunday.
The government will also seek to pass the backpacker tax after losing a vote on its 19 per cent income tax rate for working holiday makers in the Senate this week.
Labor, the Greens and cross benchers voted in favour of a 10.5 per cent rate, but the coalition used its numbers in the lower house on Thursday to reject this and ping-pong the bill back to the Senate.
It's possible a compromise could be found as early as Monday around a 10.5 per cent rate which rises to 15 per cent over several years, which has been flagged by One Nation.
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One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said if the government did not compromise, farmers and other industries reliant on a strong horticultural sector would suffer.
Labor leader Bill Shorten said his party was also up for "sensible compromise".
But Finance Minister Mathias Cormann says the government has compromised as far as it "sensibly" can and the budget cannot afford a further tax cut beyond what we have put on the table.
A thorn in the government's side could be the dispute over the Murray-Darling Basin plan, with Senate powerbroker Nick Xenophon threatening to hold up legislation until the dispute over the Murray-Darling Basin is resolved.
Senator Xenophon, who holds a crucial bloc of three Senate votes, is angry about a letter from federal Water Minister Barnaby Joyce allegedly reneging on an understanding to return 450GL to the river for its environmental health.
Assistant Water Minister Anne Ruston said the government was delivering that bipartisan plan in full as per legislation and stirring up hysterical, emotional debate was unhelpful.
