Union blues as Setka saga splits allies

CFMEU state branches back John Setka, increasing pressure on national officials.

In happier times: A photo posted by the MUA last year of Sally McManus, John Setka, his wife Emma Walters, Joe McDonald and the ETU’s Troy Gray. Picture: Facebook

The CFMEU in Western Australia has joined the union’s NSW and Victorian branches to back John Setka, increasing pressure on national officials to defy the ACTU and 13 unions and publicly back the Victorian construction union boss.

As construction union officials held crisis talks in Canberra yesterday, the West Australian secretary of the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union, Mick Buchan, said Mr Setka’s position should be determined by the Victorian union membership “and no one else”.

In an email to members, Mr Buchan hit out at “disgraceful” leaking against Mr Setka and ­denied he sought to disparage anti-domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty at a meeting of the union’s national executive. Mr Buchan said he was at the meeting and sitting close to Mr Setka.

“What I saw was a person trying to express his personal experience of the issues he and his family have been facing,’’ Mr Buchan said. “At no time did I feel he was trying to disparage Rosie Batty or the excellent work she’s done to highlight domestic and gender-based violence in our society.”

The ongoing controversy — fuelled by Anthony Albanese’s bid to expel Mr Setka from the Labor Party and ACTU secretary Sally McManus’s push for him to resign from the CFMEU — is causing ructions across the union ­movement.

Retired CFMEU official Joe McDonald was accused of hypocrisy for backing Mr Setka, despite being a passionate campaigner against domestic violence because his mother was abused.

A picture Joe McDonald posted of himself with Rosie Batty at a 2017 Labor conference. Picture: Facebook

In a union discussion forum on Facebook, an AMWU union ­organiser posted video of an ­impassioned speech by Mr McDonald to the ALP national conference in 2015, in which he spoke of his late mother’s suffering at the hands of his father and urged male perpetrators of violence to “F..king stop it, f..king fix it, do something about it.”

Over recent days, Mr McDonald has posted photos of himself with Mr Setka, along with the caption “I stand with Setka”.

Accusing Mr McDonald of hypocrisy, the AMWU organiser wrote alongside the video, which was uploaded to YouTube by ALP publication Labor Herald: “This was the speech made by Joe McDonald about how his mother was bashed by his father. I think some people have got selective memory loss.”

Mr McDonald, in a reply post, accused the organiser of unfairly bringing his mother into the ­debate.

“I lost my Ma 10yrs ago next week, for the week (sic) gutted ­official from the AMWU who brought her into this argument, I look forward to discussing this matter further face-to-face,” Mr McDonald wrote. “And I STILL STAND WITH SETKA!”

Refusing to name the AMWU official, Mr McDonald said: “The person who put that up is just a coward, like the person who manufactured leaks about John out of the national executive meeting.”

Mr McDonald posted a photo of himself and Ms Batty, describing her as a “fearless campaigner against domestic violence”.

The leaders of 13 ­national ­unions have urged Mr Setka to ­resign but he retains the support of key Victorian left-wing unions.

The Victorian branch of the CFMEU wants the national ­leadership to publicly back Mr Setka but, as of last night, it had not responded to repeated ­requests to comment. A spokesman for Mr Buchan said last night: “Who represents Victorian construction workers, as the head of their union is entirely up to them and no-one else.”

Victorian Electrical Trades Union secretary Troy Gray said CFMEU national secretary ­Michael O’Connor and construction division national secretary Dave Noonan had also told him Mr Setka did not criticise Ms Batty at the national executive meeting.

Mr Setka now has support from the NSW, West Australian and Victorian branches, which will encourage him to defy calls by Ms McManus to resign.

Ms McManus has said she accepts Mr Setka did not denigrate Ms Batty but moved against him after he said he would plead guilty to harassment charges.

Mr McDonald, who was expelled from the ALP by the Rudd government in 2007 and later reinstated, yesterday backed Mr Setka.

But Mr McDonald insisted the push by Mr Albanese to expel Mr Setka from the party was driven by politics.

“I’m standing up for a union ­official who’s one of the best union officials in the country,” Mr McDonald said.

“This is nothing to do with domestic violence; this is just an ALP push to get rid of a very ­effective trade unionist.”

The Opposition Leader moved against Mr Setka following the reports of comments he made about Ms Batty, as well as the publication of expletive-laden text messages he allegedly sent to a woman.

In 2017, the Labor Party gave an outstanding service award to Mr McDonald, who holds the ­record as the nation’s most prosecuted union boss over convictions for assault, threats, trespass, contempt of court and ­industrial law breaches.

Mr McDonald received the award 10 years after being kicked out of the party, having been caught on film making threatening remarks and using expletives at a Perth building site.

He was quietly welcomed back into the ALP’s WA branch in 2013 when he was serving as assistant state secretary of the CFMEU.

Mr McDonald has had a grudge going back some years against Mr Albanese, who he said had pushed, in his capacity as a senior frontbencher in the Rudd government, for the union leader to be temporarily expelled from the Labor Party.

“He had me expelled, yes, and my crime was getting found not guilty,” Mr McDonald said.

He was acquitted of one charge of trespassing on a building site and had his acquittal for another charge overturned on appeal.