Fair Work Amendment (Disqualified Officers) Bill 2026
Senator HUME (Victoria—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (09:14): I rise to speak in support of the Fair Work Amendment (Disqualified Officers) Bill 2026. In 2024, the CFMEU was rightly placed into administration. As uncomfortable as that process was for the Labor Party, the level of corruption and crime that infiltrated the construction sector around Australia, particularly in my home state of Victoria, became impossible to ignore.
Under the current scheme that Labor contrived, the administrator can take disciplinary action. He can expel members, and he can disqualify officers, but he cannot do either for longer than a period of five years. That's no matter how bad an individual's behaviour is or how bad the offences that they committed are.
A member expelled today can simply reapply to join the union in five years time. That's the limit, and it applies no matter what the offences are. This is a provision that, to me, seems entirely unjust and unjustifiable.
In practice, this gives some of the most well-known and worst documented characters in the CFMEU a pathway back into the ranks of the union, and it opens up the moment that the five-year expiry kicks in. This is highly problematic and deserving of reform today. You don't have to take my word for it that five years isn't enough; you can take the word of the administrator himself.
On 30 July on the ABC 7.30 program, Michael Crosby AM was asked why he was suspending John Setka's membership for only five years, and his answer was that the rules limited him to a maximum of five years. In his words, 'That's as much as I can do.' When he was pressed on the need for reform, Mr Crosby didn't rule it out. That was the administrator that the parliament has appointed, on national television, describing the limits of his own powers.
Now, he's not asking for a free hand. He's telling us that, when he judges that conduct warrants expulsion of more than five years, the law doesn't allow him to exercise that judgement. The government may disagree with me about a great many things in this debate, but it cannot disagree that its own administrator is working with one hand tied behind his back.
It's a limit on his powers. Labor will try to argue that the administrator's powers are sufficient, that they got it right the first time and that nothing needs to change, but the need for change becomes irrefutable when the extent of bad behaviour that this administration is dealing with is laid bare and put on the record. John Setka ran the Victorian branch of the CFMEU for 12 years.
His record is not a matter of rumour. It's not a matter of partisan invention. It's a matter of public record.
In 2019, Mr Setka pleaded guilty to harassing a woman by phone. In the same year, after reported comments disparaging the advocacy of Rosie Batty, his conduct became so indefensible that the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese himself moved to expel him from the Labor Party. The Prime Minister couldn't stomach him personally.
The law in this country, however, still guarantees him a way back into the Prime Minister's own union movement. Under his leadership, the Victorian branch of the CFMEU handed paid delegate and safety roles to members of outlaw bicycle gangs and figures from organised crime. When the Nine papers and 60 Minutes were about to put the evidence to him in July 2024, he wouldn't answer the questions.
Instead, he resigned and expressed the hope that his departure would end the scrutiny of his union. Of course, it did not, because that scrutiny is so well deserved. Let me put on the record what accountability looks like when it's applied to this union.
The former administrator, Mark Irving KC, asked a very straightforward question. He asked for information about how members' money had been spent. This was the reply that he received, as set out in the Watson report.
I warn the chamber that the language that I am about to use is confronting, and, for the sake of the Hansard transcript, I will temper it as much as I can. The response from John Setka was: 'Go eff yourself, Irving. You effing dogs have endangered my life with your leaks to the media, and I will come into the office whenever I want.
I'm not an ALP stooge like you two s—' Sorry. There was a different word there, but I don't even think I can say the abbreviation. Mr Setka said: … one more leak you dogs and I'll fix it myself … This is what a request for basic financial transparency for members produced; not an answer but abuse in threats and intimidation.
It didn't stop there. In November 2025 John Setka was arrested and charged over emails that police allege he had sent to the union administrator following a notice to produce. In February this year Mr Setka was arrested yet again.
He was charged over further messages to the administration, including one police say was sent on Christmas Day. He was charged with committing an indictable offence while on bail. On 14 August Mr Setka was arrested for a third time.
He was charged over social media posts, this time featuring images of the administrator, Mr Irving, and the assistant administrator, Mr Matt McGowan. A court bailed Mr Setka on the condition that he stop posting intimidating or vulgar material about people that are overseeing the union—people that were sent in by the Labor Party to clean up the union. There were three arrests and three sets of charges, every one of them arising out of allegations before the courts from correspondence aimed at the very people that this parliament put in place to clean up the CFMEU.
This is the kind of character that we are dealing with. That is the environment that the administrator is working in. This parliament is now telling that administrator that the most he can do is expel somebody for a period of five years.
Two of those years have already gone—two down, three to go. This is just a glimpse into the record of Mr John Setka and the type of person he is. That is the man the administrator examined when he imposed the toughest sanction that was available to him, and that is the man to whom the current law guarantees a return date.
He will be back amongst the union ranks in just another three years time. Five years, and the door has to be opened to him again and a welcome mat laid out, not because anyone reasonable thinks it should be but because of the way the system is set up now and the way the Labor Party have contrived this administration and because that's what the law says. That's what the statute says.
This is a bill that's not about just one man, though, and that is really important to emphasise. Mr Setka is the example, of course, that everyone knows. He's a household name, particularly in my home state of Victoria.
He brings fear and intimidation into the hearts of so many normal, good people that work on construction sites. But he's not the only one. Let me turn more generally to the suite of allegations that have been raised recently.
The Queensland Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU and misconduct in the construction industry has received even more confronting evidence about the CFMEU. This includes evidence that the union maintained a 'hit list'—I use inverted commas for that, but I do so wisely—of workplace inspectors that it sought to force out of the state regulator, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland.
There is evidence of bullying and intimidation that was so severe that one executive—a public servant just doing their job—suffered a mental breakdown and attempted to take his own life. This is the kind of behaviour that we're dealing with. These are the characters that we're dealing with.
Nick McKenzie reported exclusively in the Nine papers about the conduct of the CFMEU and officials on sites of Victoria's Big Build—two words that have become synonymous with 'construction', 'rorts' and 'waste'. These include paid delegate and safety representative roles that have been handed to members of outlaw motorcycle gangs—simply handed to them—as well as instances of women being physically abused and intimidated while the CFMEU protected the men on government sites, and even Big Build operations converted into drug distribution hubs for these outlaw motorcycle gangs.
It's out of control. Let me be very clear: this behaviour is not at all in the past. It's happening now.
Subcontractors have continued to pay underworld figures for Big Build access as recently as 2026. That's this year. It's still going on, but the administration has been going on for two years.
More arrests occurred just days ago when police seized illicit drugs, steroids, weapons and cash from a 35-year-old CFMEU delegate allegedly importing drugs through the mail and trafficking them across Melbourne's construction sites. This is the cleaned up CFMEU. Knowing this information, it is very concerning that the administrator's disciplinary powers remain subject to an arbitrary five-year limit.
The bill before us today removes that five-year statutory limit, giving the administrator the powers he needs and the options he needs to impose a longer or even indefinite period where warranted. This should not have ever needed to happen, if we had got it right the first time. Individuals with behaviour so unacceptable should not be allowed to walk back into the union movement with open arms.
The bill also includes an amendment to the act to clarify that a person is a 'removed person' if they are disqualified under the scheme. This avoids any doubt and it makes the policy very, very clear. I would assume that everyone in this chamber would agree that persons disqualified under this scheme should not be permitted to go on holding positions within registered organisations wherever they are, whatever registered organisations exist.
The bill also amends the determination itself to remove the words 'so long as a period is not greater than a period of five years'. The bill also includes a transition provision, allowing the administrator to amend a disqualification decision that was made before the commencement, where the administrator would have imposed a longer period had the five-year statutory limit not applied.
This ensures that persons who have already been subject to the maximum available sanction are not advantaged merely because their disciplinary decision was made before the commencement of this bill's amendments. We can fix this today, and it is so important to do so. If the Labor Party are serious about stamping out union corruption on construction sites, if they are serious about cleaning up the CFMEU and if they are serious about getting rid of the worst behaviour in the union movement, which is part of their legacy and something that they are rightly proud of, then you've got to stamp out the worst of the worst.
You've got to get rid of these characters, because they are intimidating, they are bullying, they are menacing, and they are stopping the very clean up that the Labor Party said that they wanted. We can do this today. This bill is one step closer to combating corruption in our construction sector—corruption in our construction sector that has cost us so dearly, that has cost the taxpayer so dearly and that has cost my home state of Victoria its reputation.
It is not controversial, and it should attract support from all sides of the chamber, because, if you are genuine about stamping out corruption, this is a no-brainer. If you are genuine about getting rid of the worst characters from the CFMEU, this is a no-brainer. If you are serious about wanting to make sure that your union movement is something that you can be proud of every day, this is a no-brainer.
Get rid of these characters once and for all. Don't open the door for them to invite them back. We are one step closer to cleaning up corruption in the construction sector today, and we should get the support of everybody around this chamber.
If you cannot support it, I suggest you take a long, hard look at yourself. I commend this bill to the Senate.