'I'll live in parliament till ABCC passed'

A government minister is happy for parliament to sit day and night to pass legislation to restore a building industry watchdog.

The Senate has extended its sitting hours to allow for debate and a vote on the Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation.

"I'm willing to stay here, live here, be here as long as possible with one proviso that my wife is due in a couple of weeks so I probably need to get home for that at some point," Nationals senator Matt Canavan told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.

The Senate debated the legislation long into Monday night.

Labor senator Kimberly Kitching said the draft laws showed the government's "authoritarian streak" and likened it to a third world dictatorship.

"Who would have thought Malcolm Turnbull was much like Fidel Castro?" she told the ABC.

That comparison didn't impress veteran Liberal senator Eric Abetz.

"Fidel Castro and his brutal regime was responsible for the execution of thousands of political dissidents, rejected free speech, destroyed an economy which sentenced thousands to extreme poverty and killed people for their sexuality," he said.

"Senator Kitching's ill-considered and outrageous suggestion that the prime minister is of a similar ilk is appalling and something for which she should apologise."