PM slams ‘ugly’ tweet

Calls for Labor to sever ties with CFMEU after official uses kids in post

PRIME Minister Scott Morrison will consider deregistering the CFMEU and called on Labor to sever ties with the union after one of its officials used his children to campaign against the building industry watchdog.

Labor lashed out at suggestions the government could ban the construction union over an inappropriate tweet by Victorian official John Setka.

Mr Setka posted a picture of his children holding a sign saying, ‘Go get f---ed’ with the caption, “Leave our dads alone and go catch the real criminals, you cowards”.

Industrial Relations Minister Kelly O’Dwyer yesterday said the government would “consider all options available to it” to deal with the CFMEU.

The Prime Minister said Mr Setka’s behaviour made his skin crawl.

“The CFMEU has behaved under John Setka like a bunch of thugs and to involve his children in that, I think, is one of the ugliest things I’ve seen,” Mr Morrison told Sydney 2GB radio.

Mr Setka, state secretary of the union’s construction division, has since deleted the tweet.

“Mea Culpa. Was emotional on Father’s Day after tough year on family. Shouldn’t have included kids. Now deleted,” he posted on Twitter.

Mr Morrison called on Mr Shorten to sever all ties between the Labor Party, Mr Setka and the CFMEU.

“Bill Shorten’s got his arms all around John Setka, and John Setka’s got his arms all around Bill Shorten,” he said.

But Mr Shorten called on the Prime Minister to spend as much time worrying about energy prices as union officials’ tweets.

“Let’s call it as it is — Mr Morrison has leapt on the tweet like a drowning man will sort of grab at a fig leaf,” the Labor leader said.

Mr Shorten said the post was wrong, but there were bigger issues for Mr Morrison.

“When it’s a union fighting for workers’ conditions, that’s what gets him hot and sweaty. I just wish he’d focus on the day job,” he said.

Mr Morrison said he would “of course” consider deregistering the union and discuss it with Ms O’Dwyer.

“This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” he told Melbourne radio 3AW. “I’m looking very seriously at this.”

The CFMEU’s forerunner, the Builders’ Labourers Federation, was deregistered by Bob Hawke’s Labor government in the mid-1980s after a royal commission into corruption.

AAP