A furious Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has erupted at the media after he came under intense questioning about union leader John Setka’s threats to the AFL.
Mr Albanese was holding a press conference in Sydney on Friday morning about upgrades to Leichhardt Oval when attention turned to Mr Setka’s demands that the AFL fire its head of umpires Stephen McBurney, the former head of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.
The Prime Minister first addressed the matter by saying he had previously expelled Mr Setka, the CFMEU Victorian Secretary, from the Labor Party, before offering some choice words to the media.
“I think that you probably encourage him by asking questions about him, given his character,” Mr Albanese said.
“It’s up to the AFL who the AFL have in positions, and not up to anyone but the AFL.”
Further pressed on Mr Setka’s recent AFL threats, Mr Albanese asked why the media “seem to be very interested in this bloke” given what happens within the football organisation was “none of his business”.
Mr Albanese reiterated that Mr Setka’s “behaviour led me to expel him from the Labor Party”, before taking exception to a question on why he was not publicly rebuking the union chief’s latest behaviour.
“I think I just did, in case you weren’t noticing. As I did yesterday, as I did the day before,” the Prime Minister snapped back.
Shadow workplace relations minister Michaelia Cash on Wednesday had criticised the Prime Minister for allowing the CFMEU boss to “run riot”.
“What a weak and insipid Prime Minister that he cannot condemn the bullying, the thuggery and the intimidation of John Setka in relation to Mr McBurney and the threats made against the AFL,” Ms Cash told Sky News Australia.
Mr Setka this week threatened to withhold co-operation on any AFL-related projects if it kept Mr McBurney on as umpire boss.
Mr McBurney’s previous role as Australian Building and Construction Commissioner saw him initiate legal action which resulted in millions of dollars of fines against the militant union.
Mr Setka told The Australian his union had an “obligation to pursue anti-union, anti-worker f**kers” and they would pursue Mr McBurney “until the end of the earth”.
The Australian further reported on Friday that Mr Setka had told Mr Albanese to “stay out of it”, while also staring down Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke.
“The campaign’s not stopping one bit. We’re not going to have politicians tell us who we can go after and who we can’t. It’s none of their business,” Mr Setka said.
Mr Burke had labelled Mr Setka’s demands as “very odd”, and said that “as a rule of thumb, if you want to win over the Australian people, don’t start attacking the AFL”.
AFL CEO Andrew Dillon told 3AW on Friday morning that Mr McBurney only started in his role “quite recently” but was doing an “incredible job” for the league.
“He’s had a massive impact and he’s been really good for the AFL and really good for the umpires, so he’ll be staying at the AFL,” Mr Dillon said.