Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke on Sunday announced building code regulation changes would come into effect from Tuesday, before he introduces legislation later this year to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission.
The commission's powers will be reduced to the "bare legal minimum" before reverting to the Fair Work Ombudsman and to health and safety regulators.
The Master Builders Australia has warned abolishing the commission risks driving up construction costs and the sector needs a specialist regulator.
But Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles says its about ensuring workers are bound by equal laws.
"What there should be is the same laws across the entire industrial relations system applying to every single worker," he told ABC News on Monday.
"The way in which this particular sector has been singled out under the ABCC was not fair."
Australian Constructors Association chief executive Jon Davies called on the government to retain the testing.
"Ongoing drug and alcohol testing requirements are important as the safety consequences of drug and alcohol impairment on a construction site cannot be overstated, irrespective of how projects are funded," he said.
When asked if rules on alcohol and drug testing on building sites would continue, Mr Burke on Sunday labelled the regulations "really weird".
"The threshold for when they apply and when they don't isn't based on a safety concern," he told the ABC.
"It's based on, one, whether you're in construction, and two, a formula of the extent of commonwealth contribution relative to the value of the project, as though somehow that's a safety principle."
Mr Davies said industrial relations rules needed to help increase productivity of the industry amid "critical" workforce shortages and unprecedented investment in infrastructure.
"While the construction industry currently has additional oversight, it is important the pendulum not swing too far towards an unregulated environment that fails to recognise the unique and, at times, troubled history of the sector," he said.
"Australia needs a workplace system where officers of registered organisations have the same duties and obligations to officers of corporations, with a regulatory body sufficiently resourced to provide adequate oversight, enforcement and meaningful consequences for unlawful behaviour."
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