Peter Dutton calls on John Setka to resign

Peter Dutton is calling on John Setka to resign and is urging the Labor Party to distance itself from the CFMEU.

Peter Dutton is calling on John Setka to resign. Picture; AAP.

Peter Dutton is calling on troubled Victorian CFMEU boss John Setka to resign and is urging the Labor Party to distance itself from the union.

The Home Affairs Minister said there was “no question” he should resign as the state’s trade union head.

“He should resign, there is no question about that, and not only that, the Labor Party should refuse to take political donations from the CFMEU,” Mr Dutton told Sky News today.

Mr Setka was arrested on Boxing Day after an incident involving his wife Emma Walters at their family home.

“The CFMEU is an organisation that has dozens of its senior officials, over a long period of time, fronting up to courts, facing some very serious allegations,” Mr Dutton said.

“I think it’s untenable, as Bob Hawke did. Hawke disaffiliated the BLF from the Labor Party and Bill Shorten should do the same. He’s danced around this issue for a period of time but Mr Setka is obviously a close personal friend of Bill Shorten. But these are serious allegations and if Mr Shorten wants to be Prime Minister of this country I think he needs to demonstrate that these previous cozy relationships with union bosses won’t stand.”

Mr Setka, 54, is due to appear in Melbourne Magistrates Court this coming Wednesday, January 9, after receiving bail for the charge.

Workplace Relations Minister Kelly O’Dwyer has also called for Mr Setka’s resignation in recent days, describing the allegations against him as “very disturbing”.

“Bill Shorten relies on John Setka and his militant CFMEU for leadership votes and for donations and every single time Bill Shorten has failed the test of leadership when it comes to the militant CFMEU and its leadership,” Ms O’Dwyer said.

On January 2, Mr Setka issued a statement via Twitter, urging people to give his family privacy during this time.

“Over the last three years my wife Emma and my children David, Kate and Johnny have suffered immensely from the ­ongoing political and ideological ­attacks on myself as a union leader. This has been an ­extremely enormous strain on our family unit and it has taken its toll on each of us as ­individuals,” the statement read.

“I ask that while family members are seeking to recover from this tumultuous period in their personal lives that they are given the privacy to do so.”

Ms Walters, an industrial relations lawyer, was ­allegedly caught driving at more than five times the legal ­alcohol limit when she was pulled over for speeding hours after the alleged Boxing Day altercation with her husband.

She allegedly blew a blood alcohol reading of .282 when highway patrol officers stopped the car she was ­driving, with two children aged five and seven as passengers, along the Western Highway, more than 300 km from Melbourne.

She is due to appear in court this week.