Union boss John Setka is the thorn in Labor’s side
Fiery Victorian union boss John Setka, the physically imposing, tattooed former builders labourer, is running out of supporters.
John Setka is sitting in his fifth-floor office of the Victorian headquarters of the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union, threatening vengeance. It is May last year, the day after prosecutors dropped blackmail charges against Setka and his deputy, Shaun Reardon.
“We will go after everyone concerned,” he tells The Australian. “We will not rest. We want a bit of justice — because you just can’t go and do this to us, to the union, to the wider union movement, and just walk away scot-free.”
But 13 months on it is Setka, the physically imposing, tattooed former builders labourer, who is getting his comeuppance as Anthony Albanese moves to expel him from the Labor Party. Beyond expulsion from the ALP, there is a growing push for him to be forced out as the CFMEU’s Victorian secretary.
The tipping point has been Setka’s reported claim that the work of anti-domestic-violence campaigner Rosie Batty had reduced men’s rights. Setka insists his comments about Batty to the CFMEU national executive have been “taken out of context”, a claim met with heavy scepticism by ALP figures and union leaders.
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In an interview with The New Daily yesterday, Setka conceded he told the executive meeting that lawyers had informed him laws had been too skewed against women in the past and were now — in the wake of Batty’s campaign and the Victorian royal commission into family violence — skewed against men. But he denied this was a criticism of Batty.
At a press conference in Melbourne today, Setka said “there is no reason’’ for him to resign and claimed he was the victim of “false allegations” being made for political gain.
But the mood in senior union circles is that he has to go. Union sources say action could be taken against him at a meeting next week of the CFMEU’s construction division executive. Sources say a motion could be passed stating that he has brought the union into disrepute
ACTU secretary Sally McManus has cut short her attendance at an International Labour Organisation conference and will arrive back in Australian today to deal with the crisis.
Dealing with the furore
Batty should have been celebrating her appointment as an Officer of the Order of Australia on Monday, but instead was dealing with the furore over Setka’s comments. Albanese says Batty told him she was “disappointed that this was a distraction from the honour that she received”.
“Rosie Batty is a great campaigner against family violence and the idea that she should be denigrated by someone like John Setka is completely unacceptable to me as leader of the Australian Labor Party, and I don’t want him in our party. It’s that simple,’’ he said. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews backed the move by Albanese, saying pointedly that Setka’s comments “cannot be defended in any context”.
“Rosie Batty is a person of great courage who has fundamentally changed the way our country views and acts on family violence. She is rightly admired by all Australians,” he said yesterday. “The comments made about her by Mr Setka are disgraceful and his refusal to apologise for them is appalling.”
Scandals grow
The uproar over Setka’s comments comes as he intends to plead guilty later this month to harassing a woman using a carriage service. The decision to make a guilty plea came after prosecutors agreed to drop dozens of other charges.
According to yesterday’s Herald Sun, the dossier against Setka includes 32 pages of text messages, at least three statements from the woman and a witness statement from a former deputy president of the Fair Work Commission, Anne Gooley.
Police will reportedly allege that on a night in October last year, Setka phoned the woman at least 25 times and sent her 45 text messages, 20 of which were photos. The Herald Sun says the texts included: “Your dad would be so proud of you, you turned into a drunken moron … you weak f..ken piece of shit” and “You’re a c..t just like the rest of your family”.
McManus says Setka should apologise for his comments about Batty. “If the comments attributed to John Setka reported over the weekend are correct, they are appalling and totally unacceptable,’’ she says.
“They do not reflect our values or the work that unions do to campaign against family and domestic violence and should be immediately withdrawn and apologised for.”
But she says Setka should also quit if the allegations before the court are proven: “If any of these allegations are correct, John Setka must resign. There is no place for perpetrators of domestic violence in leadership positions in our movement.’’
ACTU president Michele O’Neil adds: “We will not tolerate violence against women in our movement. Our leaders must demonstrate our values.”
Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Luke Hilakari says Setka should withdraw the comments. “We have the deepest respect for Rosie Batty and what she’s done,’’ Hilakari says. “We believe everyone has a right to feel safe and be respected. Prejudice and discrimination, including misogyny, have no place in our movement.”
History of criticism
Setka’s conduct has previously attracted strong criticism, including his attack at a rally in 2017 on Australian Building and Construction Commission inspectors, an incident referenced by Albanese yesterday.
At the rally, Setka threatened to reveal the home addresses of ABCC inspectors and lobby their local shopping centres and football clubs to ensure their “kids will be ashamed of who their parents are”. “Let me give a dire warning to the ABCC inspectors: be careful what you do,’’ he said, claiming many did not have their names on the electoral roll.
“They have got to lead these secret little lives because they are ashamed of what they do. You know what we’re going to do? We’re going to expose them all. We will lobby their neighbourhoods. We will tell them who lives in that house. What he does for a living, or she. We will go to their local football club. We will go to the local shopping centre.
“They will not be able to show their faces anywhere. Their kids will be ashamed of who their parents are when we expose all these ABCC inspectors.”
Declaring the CFMEU “out of control”, then employment minister Michaelia Cash referred the comments to the Australia Federal Police, saying they were “threatening and menacing in nature”, but the AFP decided not to investigate.
After three days of controversy, Setka made a qualified apology, claiming “the speech was made in the heat of the moment and reflects what’s really going on across the country under this anti-worker government’’.
“But as a family man and father of three beautiful children, if my comments were taken out of context or if they came across in a manner that was threatening, then I truly apologise,” he added.
Setka again attracted condemnation last September when he posted a tweet featuring a photograph of his young son and daughter holding a sign that read “GO GET FU#KED”.
Targeting ABCC commissioner Stephen McBurney, Setka wrote: “Message to McBurney and the ABCC: Leave our dads alone and catch the real criminals you cowards. Happy Father’s Day to all the @CFMEU dads today.”
Following widespread criticism — including from Scott Morrison, who described Setka’s use of his children as “the ugliest thing I have ever seen” — Setka tweeted a retraction.
“Mea Culpa. Was emotional on Father’s Day after tough year on family. Shouldn’t have included kids. Now deleted,” he said.
Over the years, Setka has faced calls — and not just from the Coalition — to be kicked out of the ALP. After his threats against ABCC inspectors in 2017, former ACTU president Martin Ferguson urged the Labor Party to not only expel Setka but to cut ties with the CFMEU’s construction division in Victoria.
“It’s time that the Labor Party had a hard look at whether or not Mr Setka is a fit and proper person who should be entitled to party membership,” Ferguson, a lobbyist for the resources industry, told The Australian in 2017.
“The real question for the Labor Party is whether or not the CFMEU’s building division in Victoria should be entitled to affiliate, because clearly it’s not a union that any decent worker can be proud of.
“I think it’s time for the party to act on Bob Hawke’s comments some time ago to disaffiliate the building and construction division of the CFMEU in Victoria.”
In contrast to his comments yesterday, Hilakari slammed Ferguson’s remarks, asserting at the time: “I don’t think Martin Ferguson is fit to lick the construction boots of John Setka. There is no bigger Judas than Martin Ferguson going around.
“This guy earns a dollar by selling out to the mining and energy industry after being resources minister. And he has the gall to question John Setka’s integrity. I don’t think this yellow-bellied snake can get any lower.”
Two years on, Albanese is in agreement with Ferguson about expelling Setka but no move had been made by Labor against the Victorian branch of the CFMEU.
Under Bill Shorten, Setka’s public attacks on the ALP did not lead to action against him. In the interview with The Australian in May last year, he claimed Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard were “probably the worst Labor prime ministers we have ever f..king seen”.
“I understand Labor governments have to govern for all Australians. They are not there just to govern for unions — but if you can’t restore basic workers’ rights as the Labor Party, then change your name. Don’t call yourselves the Labor Party. Be the stand-for-something Labor Party. The legacy the Rudd and Gillard governments left is an absolute disgrace,’’ he said.
Setka said he hoped Shorten would make the Labor Party “how it used to be, actually stand up for working people”. But Shorten is now gone from the leadership, after losing the supposedly unlosable election and Setka is an increasingly isolated figure.
Hanging on
Before Albanese’s public intervention yesterday, Labor Senate leader Penny Wong had called on Setka to consider his position.
Recently retired ALP senator Doug Cameron, a former metalworkers union leader, called on Setka to quit.
Cameron said he strongly supported the CFMEU as workers need effective and mindful unions. “It’s what my union called being a ‘mindful militant’,” Cameron tweeted. “There is nothing mindful about the alleged behaviour of John Setka. He should put the movement and members first by resigning.”
While some union leaders state privately their preference for him to quit, they also argue he is an elected official who cannot be forced out against the majority wishes of the union rank-and-file membership.
Australian Workers Union national secretary Daniel Walton says the allegations against Setka are “quite damning, and, frankly, quite diabolical”.
“I certainly think the stances that have been taken by Sally McManus and, of course, Anthony Albanese, leader of the Labor Party, send a pretty strong signal that this kind of behaviour, if proven guilty, certainly won’t be accepted in the trade union movement and shouldn’t be accepted anywhere in society,’’ he told ABC television.
Master Builders Australia chief executive Denita Wawn says while the stand taken by Albanese and the ACTU is refreshing, “it’s cold comfort for our members who daily bear the brunt of bullying from construction unions and their officials”.
“On the upside, this can be a turning point for Labor if they take the next step and seize this opportunity to reject the CFMEU’s toxic culture of bullying,’’ she says.
“With a softening economy, our industry, which is the nation’s second largest, shouldn’t be held back from driving economic growth by bullies and thugs.”
But Wawn says Setka is “just one of many construction union bullies” and “there’s a litany of union officials who have records of breaking the law and many are still in powerful positions overseeing millions in members’ money”.
Setka remains defiant: “I have been elected by union members. They are my bosses. If they want me to leave, I will step down tomorrow. But I am not going to stand down over innuendo and lies people have made up. This is dirty ALP politics.”
But there is a growing view among ALP and union figures that his position is untenable. “It’s an absolute shit show,’’ one official says. “The general view is he has to go.”