ACTU leader McManus admits Setka didn’t bag Batty

Sally McManus has acknowledged that the union chief did not denigrate Rosie Batty.

CFMEU Victorian Secretary John Setka yesterday. Picture: David Geraghty

ACTU secretary Sally McManus has acknowledged that union boss John Setka did not denigrate Rosie Batty, the key reason for Anthony Albanese moving to expel him from the ALP, but ­demanded that he quit over harassment charges.

Two more unions last night backed Mr Setka’s departure but, after winning the public support of the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union’s Victorian and NSW branches, Mr Setka refused the call by Ms McManus for him to quit.

Ms McManus said that, after speaking to Mr Setka and CFMEU officials who attended a recent meeting of the union’s nationa­l executive, she accepted he did not denigrate Ms Batty at the gathering. “He never said anything to denigrate Rosie Batty,’’ she said. “He didn’t in any way say laws are worse for men. It’s just been reported in a way that’s not correct.”

But the Labor leader, when announcing his intention this week to have Mr Setka expelled from the party, said: “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.”

Asked to respond to Ms McManus’s comments last night, a spokesman for Mr Albanese referre­d The Australian to the Labor leader’s comments earlier yesterday, when he said he had spoken to people at the meeting and Mr Setka had said he made reference to Ms Batty.

After a frank 90-minute meeting with Mr Setka yesterday, Ms McManus said she had acted after he said on Wednesday he would plead guilty to using a carriage service to harass a woman.

“I have previously said if these allegations are correct — the ones that have been reported in the media — they are totally unacceptable,’’ she said. “There is no place for perpetrators of domestic violence­ in leadership positions in our movement.”

A meeting of Victorian CFMEU construction division delegates yesterday demanded the union’s national leadership express public support for Mr Setka and condemned the “cowardly­ and disgraceful attacks on both John and his family”.

The delegates demanded an independent and detailed audit of the phone records of officials who attended the last national executive, in an attempt to “find out where the damaging and manufactured leaks came from”.

CFMEU NSW president Rita Mallia also demanded Mr Albanese withdraw his bid to expel Mr Setka from the ALP, and denied Mr Setka made disparaging comments about Ms Batty.

At a Melbourne Magistrates Court hearing last month, barrister Marcus Dempsey, representing Mr Setka, indicated his client would plead guilty to two charges, including one count of using a carriage service in October to harass a female victim, who cannot­ be identified.

Ms McManus said Mr Setka should resign.

“He needs to think about all of the union movement and I ­believe at the moment what’s he said and possibly done has caused us damage, and it would be the right thing to do, even if he’s innocent, to stand down from his position,” she said.

“I believe that would be the right moral thing to do.”

Ms McManus said unions were democratic, member-run organisations and, while Mr Setka was elected by his members, he needed to “consider the interests of working people and the wider union movement”.

She said that over the past four days “the whole reputation of the union movement had been called into question because of his actions” and the Coalition had sought to exploit the controversy by reactivating attempts to bring on laws to make it easier to ban union officials and deregister unions.

“Now, in the interests of our movement, in the interests of working people, and in the interests of the values we share, I have asked John to do what is best for everyone and stand down,” Ms McManus said.

She said the ACTU would not take action to force Mr Setka out if he refused to quit, and it would be a matter for the CFMEU if he did not resign.

The Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association and the Community and Public Sector Union/State Public Services Federation backed the ACTU’s call.