The ties that bind the Victorian ALP and the CFMEU are long, strong and complicated.
Much has been made over the years about the hundreds of thousands of dollars the CFMEU has donated to Labor during John Setka’s reign as state secretary.
It is true that the rivers of union gold are critical to the CFMEU-ALP relationship, but there’s more to it than the cash.
Also underpinning the links are personal friendships forged in a stew of always-moving factional allegiances in the midst of the reckless and ruthless political force that was the Andrews government.
You only have to look at the inaugural speech by Luba Grigorovitch – the former state secretary of the Rail Tram and Bus Union elected to parliament in 2022 as the Labor member for Kororoit – to see how close some Labor MPs are to Setka.
As her guest Setka looked on from the public gallery, Grigorovitch told parliament that her time as a union leader brought her into a “cabal of fierce advocates from other unions”.
“I am grateful to have found fellow travellers, so thank you to Johnny Setka – I think it is your first time in the gallery, is it not?”
In another statement to parliament, the rookie MP described Setka as a “brother”. For some reason, Grigorovitch even attended the CFMEU EBA vote at Festival Hall in June.
Premier Jacinta Allan, who on Monday suspended the CFMEU from the ALP and called in IBAC and police over a series of misconduct allegations, attended the funeral of Setka’s father. Allan, who is married to a former CFMEU official in the union’s forestry and manufacturing division, said she doesn’t know Setka “well” and attended the funeral to honour and recognise a worker who survived the West Gate Bridge collapse in the 1970s.
Allan went hard against the CFMEU on Monday, but she had little choice, given the crisis engulfing the union.
And by suspending the union, she’s left the way open for a return to the Labor fold. She could have called a royal commission, but she didn’t.
It’s worth noting that despite Setka being ousted from the ALP in 2019 by then opposition leader Anthony Albanese over remarks he made about domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty, the union didn’t turn the cash tap off to Labor.
Despite Albanese ousting Setka, the Victorian Labor government under Andrews and Allan – the minister responsible for delivering many of the Big Build projects and 2026 Commonwealth Games – were more than happy to work with the Setka-led union.
Under the Andrews-Allan leadership, the CFMEU effectively controlled projects such as level crossing removals and various train and car tunnels being dug under Melbourne.
One Labor figure remarked allowing the CFMEU dominance over the Big Build – at the expense of rival unions such as the Australian Workers Union – probably jacked up the bill by 20 per cent.
Another Labor insider with a detailed understanding of the CFMEU-ALP dynamic said Andrews and Allan were willing to pay that “premium” to ensure the Big Build was not bogged down in industrial havoc.
A 2026 Commonwealth Games document – remember, Allan was the minister responsible for the doomed event – also reveals just how embedded the CFMEU is in the way Labor runs the state.
Bidders for the contracts to build the four athletes villages were explicitly steered towards the CFMEU for industrial coverage. As a rival union leader told The Australian: “For the past three or four years, the Andrews government has given the CFMEU everything they wanted.”
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