Rot on the yacht: Gatto throws a labour party on celeb’s yacht

Two prominent Victorian union and Labor powerbrokers have been filmed dining with gangland figure Mick Gatto on a yacht, raising fresh questions about the Allan government’s efforts to combat underworld influence in the state’s economy and trade union movement.

The January 21 video shows Gatto seated at a table with plumbers’ union boss and influential ALP figure Earl Setches – who is also director of the multibillion-dollar property arm of superannuation giant CBUS – and firefighters’ union chief Peter Marshall.

The decision of the two union and state ALP powerbrokers to mix with Gatto comes despite the strident efforts of the administration of the CFMEU – the union where Gatto previously cultivated his closest ties to powerful officials – to curb the gangland figure’s influence in the building sector and trade union movement.

In addition to facing questions about Setches and Gatto, superannuation giant CBUS has separately been dragged into another scandal involving fallout from the continuing CFMEU saga.

This masthead has confirmed that a CFMEU representative on the CBUS board, legal officer Lucy Weber, had a secret relationship with her CFMEU boss, Zach Smith. Smith was backed by state and federal Labor to reform the CFMEU in 2024 but quit the union abruptly last month.

Smith was the CFMEU’s national secretary when it appointed Weber to the superannuation giant’s board in November 2024, a position she still holds under the union’s power to appoint and sponsor three CBUS directors.

While CFMEU administrator Mark Irving, KC, had ultimate oversight over Weber’s appointment and it is not clear whether Smith had a role in that process, Smith was among the most influential union leaders at the time.

Industry sources, unable to speak publicly, confirmed Smith and Weber, who is also on CBUS’s audit, people and culture board subcommittees, failed to disclose their personal relationship to the union administration or to CBUS.

This left both organisations unable to manage potential real or perceived conflicts of interest involving the pair and their key respective roles protecting the rights of union members with CBUS accounts and improving culture and power imbalances in the workplace.

Irving confirmed through a spokesperson’s statement that Smith was now being investigated.

“The administration is investigating allegations made against a former officer of the union. The investigation is subject to privacy and confidentiality, and no further comment will be made,” the statement said.

CBUS, which is chaired by former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan, said it supported efforts to clean up the construction sector and would review “credible allegations” against its directors. Weber and Smith did not respond.

Setches was filmed fraternising with Marshall and Gatto in late January on a luxury yacht owned by a friend of Gatto’s, ex-AFL player turned media personality Sam Newman. The trio can be seen at a table with champagne, wine, beer and prawns.

The yacht meeting came after the Labor-backed CFMEU administration has made repeated attempts to combat Gatto’s “malignant” influence on the building sector and union movement.

Gatto has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in his dealings with the union and the building industry. On Wednesday, he told radio station 3AW’s Jacqui Felgate that he had been made a scapegoat for broader problems in the building industry.

While he admitted he worked for companies engaged on the government’s signature Big Build program, he denied that meant he was being paid from the public purse.

Gatto also admitted buying Versace bracelets, as reported by this masthead, for CFMEU leaders.

“I did it pure and simply because it was a term of my friendship,” he said.

Police are continuing to probe Gatto and his gangland associates over suspect payments from building firms to entities linked to him, including those on Labor’s Big Build projects.

In his radio interview, Gatto denied he was a client of an accountant raided last year as part of that investigation.

The two senior barristers most responsible for cleaning up the CFMEU, union administrator Irving and corruption investigator Geoffrey Watson, SC, have separately identified Gatto as a corrosive influence.

In September 2024, Watson released his first report that raised major concerns over Gatto’s access to the CFMEU, while last October, Irving introduced new rules to curb the influence of Gatto and construction industry fixers.

“I will now make this very clear – no organiser or official is to agree to, or meet with, Mr Gatto or any other industrial mediator or fixer, except in the circumstances clearly identified in the [new draft] policy,” Irving said at the time.

“I have written to Mr Gatto today and advised him that any contact by him with any of our employees contrary to the draft policy will not be tolerated and in my view may be a contravention of federal laws and may be referred to law enforcement agencies or regulators.”

In his most recent report, tabled in a Queensland inquiry, Watson said Gatto “has damaged the building industry and damaged the Victorian economy – maybe permanently. Everybody knows what he has been doing. Repeated inquiries, including royal commissions, have singled out Gatto as a criminal. Yet he seems to survive.”

As plumbers’ union boss, Earl Setches wields influence over the building industry and the ALP, while Peter Marshall, of the United Firefighters Union, has previously been scrutinised over allegations of undue influence over state Labor. The Labor government has had a fractious relationship with Marshall for years partly linked to fire service reform and industrial disputes.

Speaking last week, Premier Jacinta Allan said she accepted that underworld figures like Gatto were too close to senior union leaders in the construction sector.

“I want to be careful; this is alleged behaviour. We do not want to in any of this compromise the work of our independent law enforcement agencies,” she said. “Yes, it is a concern. It’s a deep concern to me that there was a rotten culture that took hold.”

On Wednesday, Allan said she does not meet with Gatto but that “what other people do is a matter for them, that I can only demonstrate my own example.”

Setches told this masthead he had no industrial relationship with Gatto but worked with him on his autism charity and was invited by Marshall onto the yacht as part of a prize awarded during a charity event.

“I’ve had no dealings ever in my 26 years of being secretary with Mick Gatto industrially,” Setches said.

“If there was a plumbing contractor [that Gatto mediated], I would represent my members and meet him, but we haven’t.”

Setches said he had been on the board of Gatto’s autism charity, alongside Marshall, but left a year ago to avoid his union being hounded over the association. He said that after raising some funds for a charity, there was a prize given out for a lunch on the river with Sam Newman, and Marshall invited him along.

“[It was] a couple of hours for a thank you for the help that we’re doing for autism, and I’d do it again tomorrow,” Setches said.

Marshall did not respond to a request for comment.

Gatto, former CFMEU secretary John Setka and Marshall were all spotted together on Spring Street, the Herald Sun reported late last year.

Both Marshall and Setches can influence certain Labor parliamentary and party posts. Marshall was almost elected to the ALP’s powerful national executive in 2023, with Setches and Kim Carr among his supporters.

This was prevented at the last minute through a splitting of CFMEU votes and through a combined effort of Labor’s Left and Right. Tim Ayers, an ally of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, was the Left’s numbers man in this instance and, at the time, it was reported the prime minister was supportive of the move.

Both sides agreed it was important to keep Marshall away from the national executive while others said Albanese was also keen to keep the factional split evenly divided between Left and Right.

Setches has been described as Daniel Andrews’ conduit to the construction industry during Andrews’ time as premier. Setches paid for the bar tab at Andrews’ farewell party at Trades Hall.

Setka would regularly claim never to have met Andrews, but Setches, a close ally, often served as a link between the government and the sector. He meets with state government ministers and met with Allan as recently as May 2025, according to her ministerial diaries.

Diary records starting from late 2023 show him meeting with at least five ministers including in the portfolios of energy and training and with Sports Minister Steve Dimopoulos on “portfolio matters related to sport”.

Setches’ union has been described by Labor insiders, who declined to speak publicly on internal matters, as another arm of the CFMEU, and he is often described as the uniting force between various powerbrokers.

The Plumbing Industry Climate Action Centre (PICAC), where he is a director, received $4 million in taxpayer funds from the Andrews government in 2018.

Annual reports show PICAC collects more than $8 million a year from construction industry safety net Incolink, more than $2 million through a “training levy” attached to EBAs and millions more through “other grants”.

Upskilling for plumbers, a $5 million state government initiative, provides free PICAC training using taxpayer funds.

Under Setches’ urging, his union, the CEPU, voted to disaffiliate from the ACTU to start a new group, in protest over the CFMEU’s treatment. Similarly in 2019 when Setka was under intense pressure, Setches and his union publicly backed the then CFMEU leader and urged him to remain in the role.

Setches is also linked to former Health Workers Union secretary Diana Asmar. The HWU and the plumbers’ union are represented by one MP within the Labor caucus. Upper house President Shaun Leane has their support but is retiring from politics this year.

Setches has been working to get his choice of candidate to replace Leane but this has been significantly complicated by Labor’s female representation rules.

He was instrumental in setting up the factional carve-up that gave fallen powerbroker Adem Somyurek significant control over Victorian Labor until this masthead’s investigation into Somyurek saw that alliance collapse.

At a meeting in December 2017, then federal opposition leader Bill Shorten met with Somyurek, Setches and others to discuss the new arrangements including the move of the CFMEU into a new grouping called the Industrial Left.

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