I wouldn’t take John Setka’s money: Peter Beattie

Setka says he doesn’t know whether he trusts Shorten, and plans to give the Labor leader six months to prove himself as PM.

John Setka and Shaun Reardon. Picture: Twitter

Militant construction union boss John Setka has revealed he does not know whether he trusts Bill Shorten, and plans to give the Labor leader six months to prove himself if he becomes prime minister.

Mr Setka’s comments came as after former Queensland Labor premier Peter Beattie said that if he were Mr Shorten, he would refuse to take donations from the CFMEU under Mr Setka.

Mr Setka told today’s Australian Mr Shorten should make it easier for workers to strike, and attacked Labor’s Fair Work Act, accusing Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard of being “probably the worst Labor prime ministers” in Australia’s history.

Asked by 3AW Melbourne radio host Neil Mitchell this morning whether it was correct that he didn’t trust Mr Rudd or Ms Gillard, Mr Setka said: “I don’t trust most politicians to be quite honest.”

Asked whether he trusted Mr Shorten, Mr Setka said: “Well, if he becomes the prime minister ask me six months later. I mean I don’t know.”

“A lot of politicians say they’re going to do a lot of things. People say in a broad brush, ‘we’re going to restore workers’ rights’. I mean what does that mean?

“There’s a whole heap of things that we’ve got to restore. I mean what are they going to restore? So a lot of them say it in the general sense. They don’t go into specifics. That’s the problem.”

Mr Setka highlighted penalty rates, insecure work, and strike action as other issues he wanted to see a Shorten Labor government address.

I’m not the keeper of every official in the union movement’: Shorten

Mr Shorten said he did not think anyone was above the law, when asked about Mr Setka’s comments yesterday that it was sometimes necesary to break the law to achieve results for union members.

“I’m not the keeper of every official in the union movement, nor am I the keeper of every banker or businessman,” Mr Shorten said.

“I think all Australians should obey the law but let’s go to the heart of why you’re asking about CFMEU officials.

“The Trade Union Royal Commission set up in 2014 by Tony Abbott continued and supported by Mr Turnbull, is nothing more than a taxpayer funded witch hunt of the union movement.

“I think it is beyond a joke that Mr Turnbull spends tens of millions of dollars to attack the trade unions, and he does this as a distraction to cover up the protection racket he’s been running for the big banks.

“If you want to find out who the real crooks in town are, go to the top end of business, go and have a look at the banks and the appalling conduct all the while Mr Turnbull’s been banging on attacking the unions trying to get wage rises for workers.

“He’s driven right past the banks who’ve been ripping off thousands and thousands of customers, farmers and small business. His priorities are all wrong. Yet again protecting the big end of town and going after everyone else.”

Asked whether he would follow Mr Beattie’s advice and stop receiving donations from the CFMEU, Mr Shorten said the Turnbull government should focus on foreign political donations.

The Labor Party received $620,000 from the CFMEU in the 2015-16 financial year — the most recent period for which information is available from the Australian Electoral Commission.

“No I’m not going to take that advice. I think the real issue here if we want to talk about cleaning up donations is the Turnbull Government should stop taking foreign donations,” Mr Shorten said.

“Unions and business and social institutions all have a right to be involved in politics.

“What we’ve got to do though is make sure we have transparent and honest politics, so my advice to the government is this: let’s clean up foreign donations, and I’d say let’s clean up donations generally, and make all payments over $1000 transparent, and I think it’s now long overdue, and I’m sure Mr Beattie would agree with this, that we have a national integrity commission, a national anti-corruption commission.”

CFMEU ‘Shorten’s paymaster’

Mr Turnbull said Bill Shorten should not be accepting donations from the CFMEU, but the militant union is his “paymaster”.

“Of course Bill Shorten shouldn’t be accepting money from the CFMEU, but they are in fact his paymaster. They are his controller. He does the bidding of the CFMEU,” Mr Turnbull said.

“I can understand what Peter Beattie has said. After all, when Bob Hawke was Labor prime minister he deregistered the BLF, and they were disaffiliated from the Australian Labor Party.

“The CFMEU is in charge of Bill Shorten and, as you know, there’s a written agreement he entered into to get their support to become Labor leader.”

Mr Beattie’s comments come after Mr Setkasaid it was necessary to break the law to win better pay and conditions for union members.

“If you play by the laws, you will never win,” Mr Setka told Sky News in an interview filmed several weeks ago but first telecast yesterday.

Malcolm Turnbull says Bill Shorten should not be accepting money from the CFMEU.

“If that is not used as Liberal Party advertising at the next election, I’ll walk to Bourke in my underwear, and that is a pretty ugly sight,” Mr Beattie told Sky News today.

“John Setka is the gift that keeps on giving to the Coalition.

“Now I know he’s playing to his members, and I know he’s in a tough business, the construction industry.

“I get all that and I get the CFMEU’s commitment to public safety and the welfare and health of their members, but the reality is, when you talk about going outside the law, you lose Middle Australia.”

Asked whether Mr Shorten should continue to accept donations from the CFMEU, Mr Beattie said it was a difficult issue for the Labor Party.

“If it was me, I wouldn’t take their donations because I think at the end of the day you pay too much of a price for it,” he said.

“As I said, John Setka’s playing to his membership. He’s not playing for the re-election of a Shorten government. I wouldn’t take his money.”

John Setka in Melbourne. Picture: Stuart McEvoy.

Former federal Liberal leader John Hewson said Mr Setka’s antics were a “gift to the government” which would keep on giving until Bill Shorten took a public stand.

“I mean the image of Shorten over a long period of time is that he got there because of support, in some cases unjustified support from key elements of the union movement,” Mr Hewson told Sky News.

“He looks like he’s looking for ways to sell out to them all the time, the legislation in question (to which Setka objects) is actually legislation that was put in by the Labor government.

“He needs to make a stand. He needs to take a leaf out of Bob Hawke’s book. I mean the broader Australian community would see that behaviour as totally untenable, and the Liberal Party, yes, will exploit it.

“They’ll exploit it at every opportunity, and until Shorten can actually make a break from the union movement, and the line that Peter says, perhaps don’t take the donations from the CFMEU, some fundamental stand is going to be required, otherwise Turnbull and his team will have a field day.”

Fitzgibbon backs Setka, Shorten distances himself

Yesterday Labor agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon appeared to back Mr Setka’s justification for breaking the law, saying progress had been “built on civil disobedience”.

“The workplace laws are so restrictive, you know, just trying to get onto a worksite as I understand it these days can be a breach of the law, so next time they tell you that these guys have been fined a thousand times or whatever they’re claiming, ask what they were fined for,” Mr Fitzgibbon told Sky News.

“I suspect in most cases they were fined for trying to stick up for workers, notwithstanding the legislative barriers this government has put in their way.”

Pressed on whether he was saying it was necessary for Mr Setka to break laws in the interests of workers, Mr Fitzgibbon said: “The history of mankind and a lot of our progress has been built on civil disobedience.”

“I mean when you’ve got a government in power that makes it impossible for our trade union movement to represent workers, we have a problem,” he said.

Mr Shorten did not give Mr Setka the same endorsement.

“I don’t think you need to break the law full stop,” the Labor leader said.

“The issue you’re going to is the court case yesterday that the prosecution dropped all its matters. That speaks for itself.”

Pressed again for his view on Mr Setka’s comments, Mr Shorten said: “I haven’t seen what he said. I’m not going to protect anyone breaking the law.”