“The whole [CFMEU] national executive, all the secretaries all know about it,” he said.
“I was absolutely disgusted [when administrators were appointed]. I think Tony Burke has betrayed construction workers in Australia.”
When talking about his relationship with Albanese, Setka said he believes he scared the prime minister during an “incident” in a lift.
Former CFMEU Victorian secretary John Setka has inked up.Credit: Instagram
“It wasn’t really much of a conversation, to be quite honest,” he said.
“I didn’t say anything bad to him … Yeah he was scared.
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“When someone starts trembling, you know they’re scared. But I hadn’t even said a word.”
Setka also defended dropping a suitcase bearing the words “Leo the Dog” outside the house of CFMEU assistant national secretary Leo Skourdoumbis, arguing that he lived nearby and the baggage belonged to Skourdoumbis.
“Returning a suitcase to someone that is owned by them is a threat now is it?” he said.
“If that’s intimidating, I think people maybe oughta drink a cup of concrete and harden up a little bit.”
Setka said he wasn’t proud of threatening text messages sent to his wife Emma Walters and that he had owned up to doing a “silly thing”.
“It does fall into domestic violence ... well, everything falls [into the] domestic violence category these days.
“Me and my wife have moved on. We’re getting through it, and we’re working through it with our kids, and our number one priority is our children.”
The controversial figure said bikies had been working in the building industry “since Jesus wore shorts” but he argued it was the CFMEU’s job to ask about these associations and that some members of bikie gangs had never had convictions recorded against them.
Setka questioned why contractors would pay cash to secure enterprise agreements with the union when “you can just walk in off the street and get an EBA”, but he stopped short of denying that people within the union may be collecting cash while promising to get the deals done.
“I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but I’d be very, very surprised if that was happening because it just doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
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