The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, certainly isn't defending it - he's trying to have Setka expelled from the Labor Party. The final straw was Setka's reported comments that Rosie Batty's campaign against domestic violence had reduced men's rights. Setka said he was quoting lawyers and was taken out of context but it didn't matter to the new Labor leader. After years of Bill Shorten tolerating Setka, Albanese was sending a strong signal when he announced: "I don't want him in the party I lead. It's that simple." Setka is now fighting him in the courts. John Setka and his wife Emma Walters. Credit:AAP But the government is manoeuvring to put Albanese into the exquisitely awkward position of having to defend Setka. Because it's presenting its new laws as an action to purge the militant thug from his post as Victorian secretary of the construction division of the giant CFMMEU, the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union. And while Albanese wants to get Setka out of the party, he will oppose the government's proposed laws to get him out of the union.

The deputy Nationals leader, Bridget McKenzie, this week previewed the government's attack: "I'm really looking forward to Anthony Albanese explaining" that he was "supporting the expulsion of Mr Setka from the Labor Party but not supporting legislation that would actually make it happen". Loading Of course, the government's bills are far bigger and broader than merely targeting Setka. The so-called Ensuring Integrity Bill would ease the way to removing miscreant union officials and deregistering entire unions. In other words, it would allow offending unions to be abolished. A drastic step? Yes, but it would not be the first time - the Hawke government supported deregistering a forerunner of the CFMMEU, the Builders Labourers Federation, in 1985 for consistent law-breaking and thuggish behaviour. But today's Labor Party has closed ranks to protect the unions against the government's campaign. When Labor's parliamentary caucus met on Tuesday formally to decide its position, the recommendation to oppose all the governmment's proposed measures was accepted without any debate whatsoever.

Porter will bring his bills to a vote in the House next week, applying maximum pressure on Albanese. The Labor leader has been criticised for yielding to the government on a range of proposals including tax cuts and terrorism laws, but this is one matter where Albanese dare not yield. He will continue to demand Setka's explusion, and the sooner the better, but he will defend the rights of the CFMMEU and the wider union movement to the end. The union movement will not tolerate anything less from its parliamentary wing. Illustration: John Shakespeare Credit: Expect more rhetoric like this from the government: Albanese had decided that "militant unionist John Setka is not a fit and proper person to be a member of the Labor Party", said Porter this week, "but, interestingly, the same remarkable record of offending has not also given rise to a view from the Opposition Leader that it is not fit and proper for Labor to accept the $1 million that John Setka sent to Labor as a Victorian branch secretary. "What we have here is a situation where the character of John Setka is now rejected fulsomely by Labor, but his cash is still warmly accepted – as much of it that can flow as possible."

In the face of Labor opposition, the government will need the support of the crossbench senators in the upper house to get its way. The new Senate is much more manageable for the government than the old. Where Labor and the Greens join to block it, the government need win over only four of the crossbench. And it's tantalisingly close already. On its union bills, the government already counts the two votes of Pauline Hanson's One Nation, and the vote of the senator Cory Bernardi. That means it need convince only Tasmania's Jacqui Lambie to support it to make the bills law. Or one or both of the South Australian senators of the Centre Alliance, the legacy of Nick Xenophon. Illustration: Jim Pavlidis Credit: Jacqui Lambie is disgusted by Setka's conduct and has told him so face-to-face. She wants him out of his leadership job at the CFMMEU and she's using this opportunity to apply maximum pressure. Lambie confirms the account that The Financial Review's Phil Coorey reported this week. That is, Lambie told the president of the peak union body, Michele O'Neil of the ACTU, that "you got a problem with the IR [industrial relations] bill and it's called John Setka".

Lambie says that if Setka clings to his job at the CFMMEU, she will be "more likely" to vote in support of the government's bills. In other words, is Setka so determined to save his job that he's prepared to expose the entire union movement to a government jihad? Loading She takes the pressure further. "Every day John Setka is in the job is another day he's doing irreparable damage to the reputation of the union movement and its workers," she tells me. "I know people are worried about union-busting bills - so am I. But as long as he refuses to go and the leadership of the union continues to pussyfoot around without carrying out disciplinary action, we will see bill after union-busting bill and they will use John Setka as a battering ram. "There is a window of opportunity for John to put the interests of workers first but that window is closing fast."

Note, however, that Lambie's position is not a clear trade-off or a firm undertaking. It's a threat. And she might yet jump either way. As Lambie herself has put it, "politics changes more than what you would change your undies". She might ultimately be swayed by the way that Labor negotiators plan to put it to her: "Are you prepared to sacrifice the interests of workers everywhere just to get John Setka?" Another of the potentially pivotal votes in the Senate, the Centre Alliance's senator Rex Patrick, takes a more systemic approach. He's not targeting Setka, he says: "Setka is but one person and therefore we are not weighing that as a factor in our thinking. In all law, you want to target misconduct, not one person." Senator Jacqui Lambie with Centre Alliance senators Rex Patrick and Stirling Griff at Parliament House. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer But it is clear that Centre Alliance is targeting the CFMMEU's extraordinary record of lawlessness. Says Patrick: "We have certainly paid attention to the judicial rulings against the CFMMEU and the remarks that judges have made in decisions. "We don't want to bring heavy-handed penalties against union officials because we respect the work that they do. But when you have judicial officers saying that they have concerns that the CFMMEU considers that court fines are simply the cost of doing business, you have to make changes. We want unions to operate and perform the very good function that they do, but they have to comply with the law when they do so."

The Liberal Party was traumatised by the Howard government's defeat at the 2007 election, which was partly due to Howard's disastrous overreach on WorkChoices laws. The Liberals have been very ginger in dealing with workplace law ever since. Morrison and Porter are attempting to get beyond the post-Howard trauma and take the unions head-on. Setka gives them the morality play to set up their case. And the CFMMEU provides the bigger, institutional case study in demonstrating why action is needed. The Centre Alliance senators are not ideologues or rabid conservatives. They are responsible centrists. It's not just that Setka's conduct is intolerable. It's that a union would tolerate it. And that Setka's blatant disregard for the law is merely a subset of systematic lawlessness that is the CFMMEU. "We are working closely with the government," Patrick says. Centre Alliance's main demand is that penalties to be imposed on unions and union officials are comparable to those imposed on corporations for similar misdeeds. Negotiations with the government turn on this comparison. But while the government will get its bills through the House next week and press for a speedy vote in the Senate, Centre Alliance is not prepared to rush it. The bills have gone to a Senate committee for detailed work. "I'm not ruling anything out but our preference is that the committee run its course and we deal with this in October," Patrick concludes.