After quitting his job, losing his power base and reputation, and seeing his industrial/political complex crumble before his very eyes, what did former union powerbroker-turned-national pariah John Setka do next?
Readers, he inked up.
Former CFMEU Victorian secretary John Setka has inked up.Credit: Instagram
The fallen former CFMEU Victorian secretary has acquired a new collar tattoo, and the message couldn’t be more defiant: GOD FORGIVES THE CFMEU DOESN’T.
Grammarians might quibble with the lack of a central comma, but there’s no mistaking the defiance behind the slogan in its thick black modern gothic font. Or indeed, the expression of defiance on shirtless Setka’s face as he stares into the camera and proudly displays his new ink, still red-raw from the tattooist’s needle.
Don’t slip! Tattooist apprentice Josh tends to his famous client. Credit: Instagram
His expression says he means business. But the simple fact is, after he jumped ship and resigned – hours before The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald’s Building Bad exposé was published and rewrote the industrial landscape – Setka has no business left. The world has turned and left him in its wake.
So what was going through the big man’s mind? We can only make an educated guess.
As The Cultural Heritage of Tattooing: A Brief History (Karger Publishing) states: “For millennia, peoples around the world have tattooed human skin to communicate various ontological, psychosocial, and sociocultural concepts encompassing beauty, cultural identity, status and position, medicine, and supernatural protection.”
Any or all might be relevant to Setka. Or maybe he just wanted to get on the front foot after a few humiliating weeks.
The ink is the work of Josh, an apprentice at Yarraville’s Classic Ink Tattoo. He goes by the name of No Future Tattoos, and his oeuvre includes daggers, panthers, barbed wire – and also a coffin.
The union slogan stretches around the collarbone at the base of Setka’s neck. If he observes normal sartorial standards and wears a shirt, it will be a message that few will ever see.
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