CFMEU leader John Setka faces new abuse allegations from estranged wife

CFMEU leader John Setka faces new allegations of verbal abuse and making threats against his estranged wife, Emma Walters.

Union leader John Setka faces new allegations of verbal abuse and making threats against his estranged wife.

Union leader John Setka faces new allegations of verbal abuse and making threats against his estranged wife, Emma Walters, The Australian reports.

Ms Walters has given a signed statement to police in which she alleges Mr Setka, Victorian secretary of the CFMEU, called her a “dog c--t” during a heated phone conversation.

It is also alleged he said her job could be “taken away”, in the phone call on Wednesday last week.

Ms Walters, a lawyer, is employed as a traffic management officer on a Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union-controlled building site in Melbourne – a job she secured with Mr Setka’s help when the couple was on good terms.

She and Mr Setka have lived apart since an alleged assault in August last year.

Emma Walters has given a signed statement to police in which she alleges Setka called her a “dog c--t”. Picture Jay Town

In her sworn statement lodged with Victoria Police, signed on Saturday, Ms Walters says she answered a call from Mr Setka to “discuss negotiations we had been having in regards to financial separation”.

“The phone call became abusive,” she says in her police statement.

“He started calling my brother a ‘dog c--t’. He told me that I was a ‘give-up dog c--t’ for talking to Footscray Police Station (in the past).’’

Ms Walters says in the statement she used the voice mode of another phone to record the conversation, which she then gave to close friend, lawyer and former Fair Work Commission deputy president Anne Gooley to hand to Victoria Police on her behalf.