Crossbones, cobras and cranky comrades at Fortress Setka

John Setka outside the Stamford Grand in Glenelg in Adelaide. Picture: Morgan Sette

The elegant Stamford Grand Hotel at Adelaide’s famous Glenelg beach is one of the city’s preferred venues for weddings, 21sts, and drinking wine with friends in the sun.

This week it has been overrun by huge blokes covered in tattoos and wearing T-shirts featuring images of skulls, fists, ­Eureka flags and cobras saying, “If provoked we will strike”.

The CFMEU is in town, with more than 100 delegates booking out the entire first floor of the hotel for its annual national conference where, as expected, Victorian militant John Setka overshadowed proceedings with his searing attack on Anthony Albanese after he chose not to fight his expulsion from the ALP.

READ MORE: Setka forced out of ALP in victory for Albanese

On a beautiful cloudless day in Adelaide where the temperature reached 33C, delegates dressed in shorts and thongs were keen to sneak out of their presentations for an early beer.

Blokes clad in union regalia gathered in the bar overlooking the beach from 3pm onwards.

Setka’s loyalists were easy to spot. They were wearing grey T-shirts with a skull and Eureka-starred crossbones on the back, with Gothic type reading FORTRESS VICTORIA and the red logo of labour law firm Maurice Blackburn embossed on their sleeves.

The Australian attempted to talk to a group of five conference delegates at the bar, in a move that could be described by way of understatement as unsuccessful.

Asked if they would care to offer any words of support for their embattled union boss, one Victorian delegate said “Take your drink and go, mate”, another said “no comment” and yet another­ said “piss off right now, mate. We don’t talk to The Aust­ralian”.

The Australian also managed to enter the inner sanctum of the union’s conference with the elevator doors opening on the first floor of the function centre where the CFMEU has based itself for the week. We were greeted by two large men at the registration table, and got back in the lift. Setka was holed up inside the conference centre throughout the afternoon, from where he launched his blistering press release condemning Albanese.

He has declined offers to speak to The Australian this week, but national CFMEU construction secretary Dave Noonan offered a defence of his Victorian chief.

“John’s dad rode down on a steel girder when the West Gate Bridge collapsed and somehow got spat out in the mud,” Noonan told The Australian.

“He was six years old at the time. It’s worth reflecting on that because it gives you an idea where he has come from.”

It is South Australia where Setka has already extended his fortress, orchestrating the listing of the moderate former SA CFMEU secretary Aaron Cartledge, with Setka labelling the SA branch “weak c..ts” and “bludging f..kers” for not being militant enough.

Setka is also connected to Adelaide through his wife, Emma Walters, who was the women’s officer at the Flinders University student union in the 2000s, but has been loyally standing by her man despite his harassment conviction against her and the furore over his alleged comments regarding domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty.