diff --git a/test/bin/python b/test/bin/python
index 3fbe8b16..9f0eb047 100755
--- a/test/bin/python
+++ b/test/bin/python
@@ -17,8 +17,12 @@ cat >/dev/null
 
 # verify the python compiles at least. if this fails then the python code passed
 # to -c failed basic syntax checks.
+# Compiler package ws removed in Py3
+# see https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3108/#id53
+# The closest replacement is the ast package
+# https://docs.python.org/3/library/ast.html
 echo "$2" |
-/usr/bin/python2.7 -c "import sys; __import__('compiler').parse(sys.stdin.read())"
+/usr/bin/python3 -c "import sys; __import__('ast').parse(sys.stdin.read())"
 
 # pretend we found zero processes.
 echo 0