[ad_1]
When a union leader was accused of denigrating domestic violence activist Rosie Batty, Anthony Albanese was decisive.
He immediately sentenced John Setka and demanded his expulsion from the Labor Party. This will happen officially when the national executive meets on July 5th.
"John Setka does not belong to our party because of his opinions," Albanese said, believing the problem was clear.
"Rosie Batty is a great activist against domestic violence and the idea that she's being denigrated by someone like John Setka is totally unacceptable to me as the leader of the Australian Labor Party and I do not want it in our left. It's so simple. "
But the situation was not as simple as Mr. Albanese imagined.
Since the press conference, Mr Setka has been provocative, the trade union movement has split in two, and doubts have been expressed about the seriousness of Mr Setka's remarks.
It has become a nightmare for Mr. Albanese, a nightmare that he's created in a hurry to do what is right.
Mr. Setka is the Victorian Secretary of the Union of Mining and Energy Industries of Maritime Construction and Forestry (CFMEU), which reports to the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).
RELATED: Setka threatens to withdraw funds from work
To Sally McManus, CUTA's leader, Mr. Albanese has found an ally. After meeting with Mr. Setka last week, Ms. McManus told him to resign.
While sharing Mr. Albanese's goal, Ms. McManus also undermined the reason why he had expelled Mr. Setka from the Labor Party.
She publicly supported Mr. Setka's badertion that he was not belittling Ms. Batty (Ms. McManus was at the meeting in question), claiming that her resignation was "unrelated to Rosie" and was based on "all series of problems ".
Other union leaders also confirmed Mr. Setka's story that his comments had been taken out of context and were not meant to criticize Ms. Batty.
Thus, in recent days, Mr. Albanese has stopped emphasizing the allegations relating to Ms. Batty and the other acts of Mr. Setka.
On Monday, he told Sky News that Setka had long been in the headlines "for all the wrong reasons."
"He gave a speech at a rally in Melbourne, where he explained that he knew where people lived and that they could not go to their sports clubs and activities. It was essentially an attempt to intimidate, "said Mr. Albanese.
"He used his children to send a very frank message to the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC)," he added.
The latter part referred to a picture posted by Mr Setka last September showing his son and daughter holding a sign saying "GO GET FU # KED".
"Message to McBurney & ABCC:" Leave our fathers alone and go to the skull against real criminals! ", He writes in the tweet that accompanies it.
Mr Setka finally removed the photo and apologized after suffering a brutal reaction, but not until Prime Minister Scott Morrison rushed on it and called the CFMEU a "gang of thugs".
RELATED: The photo of children with a vulgar sign arouses fury
There have been other deplorable incidents in Mr. Setka's past.
In 2003, he was fined for threatening a construction company manager saying, "I'll get you" and "I'll fix you".
In 2012, he was again fined after hitting the windshield of a van driven by another manager. He told the man that he hoped to die of cancer.
And last year, he sadly described former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as a "bading dog" and a "fly".
Then there is his current trial. Mr Setka faces charges of alleged harbadment of a woman with intimidating text messages and reported his intention to plead guilty to two counts.
All these things would be perfectly valid reasons for expelling Mr Setka from the Labor Party. But none of them is new. CUTA and the Labor Party have both known about Setka's behavior for years and none of them have tried to make it disappear.
Thus, although Mr. Albanese referred to the long history of controversy raised by the union leader at his initial press conference, the evidence that would have motivated his decision was, of course, Mr. Setka's alleged remarks about Ms. Batty.
"These comments are totally inconsistent with the values of the Labor Party and the labor movement in general," he said at the time.
"The party I lead is standing up against the scourge of family violence and strongly supports Ms. Batty's campaign on this important issue."
Now that his main motive for expelling Mr Setka seems fragile, Mr Albanese is in an increasingly difficult position.
More than a dozen unions have rallied behind Ms. McManus's position on Mr. Setka, but others are resisting and politically threatening the Labor Party.
Yesterday, the secretary of the Electrical Industry Workers' Union (ETU), Troy Gray, announced that he would be auditing federal and Victorian MPs to ensure "they are clean" if they want to be "judges and jurors "for Mr Setka.
"If people try to make politics with a union official, we will look to find out if they have skeletons in their closet," Gray said. L & # 39; Australian.
"If people demand a certain benchmark or standard of resignation, make sure that all these Labor MPs also respect this standard.
"If sending an SMS is the norm in terms of resignation, there will definitely be nervous politicians because we will audit them."
The other threat is financial. ETU and Setka's Victorian branch in the CFMEU both threatened to stop millions of dollars in donations to the Labor Party. In fact, Mr. Setka says that's why he was targeted.
Mr. Albanese has no choice but to remain firm. Speleology would mean humiliation. And he uses threats to strengthen his case against Mr. Setka.
"I do not respond to threats, Chris, it's as simple as that," he told 2GB radio host Chris Smith.
"I think the fact that threats are being made maybe reinforces the fact that there is a problem. If people think that's the way to engage, then I think it says more about the people who are doing the threats than the ones who are receiving them.
"I do not apologize for making the Labor Party and its interests come before anyone's."
The longer this mess continues, the more the interests of Mr. Albanese suffer. It's probably not the way he wanted to spend his first weeks as a leader.
Source link
