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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-12-01 Daily Xml
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Walters, Ms E.M.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley) (15:36): Today, I rise to speak about an incredibly strong woman, a survivor of domestic violence. Her name is Emma Walters. She is the estranged wife of militant CFMEU leader, John Setka, a man with a shocking history when it comes to the treatment of women who was in fact convicted of harassing Emma, with a magistrate slamming him as 'misogynistic and nasty'. John Setka is not a man we should be looking up to, yet he is hard to miss in Adelaide at the moment, with a huge photo of him emblazoned across a government-owned tram as part of an CFMEU advertising campaign.

Emma Walters fled Victoria with her two children to South Australia, where she grew up, to seek refuge and to get further away from the man who had caused her so much pain and anguish. She told us that when she first learnt that her perpetrator's picture had been blown up and splashed all over the side of a tram she immediately felt a sense of complete despair and was overwhelmed with abject fear. She does not have a car and relies on public transport for herself and her children but says that she will not now.

Emma has a nationally recognised intervention order to protect her from her ex-husband, but right now she feels as though the government is not protecting her. She is a survivor of domestic violence. She wants to know why the Premier and his Labor government are, instead, embracing and defending John Setka. Emma knows this man better than most and believes that this ad was designed to intimidate her in a city where she is trying to create a safe, happy life for herself and her children.

She says that John Setka will stop at nothing to traumatise her and now, because of this ad, she does not feel safe. The transport minister has admitted that this kind of advertising by the CFMEU is prohibited on our trams but, despite this, the Premier is refusing to take it down. Emma says that this shows that they have no consideration for the emotional and psychological damage this has on a victim. She told us, and I quote:

This is a government supporting a very powerful man with significant resources behind him—CFMEU funds, members' money—to unlawfully intimidate the victims and the government is condoning it.

These are not my words: these are the words of Emma Walters. The Premier handed back a $125,000 donation from John Setka's CFMEU because of their inappropriate behaviour and the public backlash, but now it seems the Premier has no worries that the CFMEU is spending its unexpected windfall aggressively promoting John Setka across Adelaide with paid advertising. It really is disgraceful.

Emma believes in freedom of speech but says a giant poster of John Setka goes against the principles of unionism and the union, as unions should be about its members not one power-hungry man. We asked Emma what she would say to the Premier if she could stand here and speak in this chamber today. She said that she would ask him if he acknowledges the impact this is having on her as a victim and her family, that she would ask him what steps he is going to take to make sure victims of domestic and family violence feel protected by this government and that she would urge him to take all necessary steps to remove this poster from the government-owned tram.

Our government is not meant to participate in instilling fear in victims of domestic violence. Premier, do the right thing: tear these distressing ads down from government-owned infrastructure and make sure something like this never, ever happens again. Premier, it takes a man to stand up to a man to stop domestic violence.

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