Paul Starick: What took Premier Peter Malinauskas so long to reject CFMEU donation to ALP

Peter Malinauskas’s political antenna has failed him dismally for the first time as Premier. Paul Starick explains why.

The biggest surprise about a militant union’s donation finally being refused by Premier Peter Malinauskas is that it took so long.

Belatedly spurning cash from the John Setka-led CFMEU, Mr Malinauskas on Sunday ordered SA Labor to repay the $125,000 donation or give it to charity.

Either Mr Malinauskas was desperately waiting for a reasonable excuse to spurn the CFMEU money or his political antenna failed him dismally for the first time as Premier.

He was caught with his pants down when the CFMEU donation to the ALP was revealed in mid-July – the Premier was away for school holidays with his young family.

CFMEU state Secretary John Setka at the Labor Party National Conference in Adelaide in 2018. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

The Labor leader who won March’s election vowing to outlaw union donations was seen to be indebted to an infamous Victorian union branch renowned for thuggery and intimidation.

Even if he initially dug in and dismissed calls to hand back the money by rejecting any suggestion Mr Setka’s branch would be afforded special treatment, alarm bells should have been ringing.

Importantly, Mr Malinauskas’s style, both as a shop assistants’ union leader and politician, has been more slick backroom manoeuvring and top-level networking than shouting, protesting and intimidating.

After all, this is the bloke who triggered the drawn-out coup to oust Labor premier Mike Rann by, of all things, having a coffee in December, 2010, at up-market Chianti to anoint factional rival Jay Weatherill as a future leader.

The-then education minister Jay Weatherill and the-then Shop Distributive and Allied Employees' Association (SDA) secretary Peter Malinauskas on December 3, 2010, at Chianti restaurant on Hutt Street, Adelaide. Picture: Tait Schmaal.

Even Mr Malinauskas’s most bitter enemies would not brand him a thug. Some Liberals reckon he’s more right wing than the man he ousted as Premier, Steven Marshall. He wants to be close to business.

So his dogged refusal to reject CFMEU cash – until Sunday – might indicate SA’s Labor branch needs all the money it can get.

But Mr Malinauskas needed to move before militant unionism infected SA’s industrial landscape, turning the donation into a cut-through public issue by making him look impotently in hock to Mr Setka.

The trigger was the vandalism of cars at the Master Builders Association’s South Tce headquarters on Friday. This included snapped windscreen wipers and CFMEU stickers slapped on cars. Mr Setka isn’t accused of any wrongdoing in relation to the vandalism.

This came just two days after the infamous Mr Setka’s Victorian branch formally seized control of the SA outfit. He led fist-pumping members in a celebratory chant of “union power”.

Finally, Mr Malinauskas has cut adrift the Setka-led CFMEU, before the political damage mounted beyond a few snapped windscreen wipers.