No one could suggest his final report suffered from the same timidity or obtuseness. Crisp, concise and dramatically candid, it described the Victorian chapter of the union as having devolved into a “squalid mess” and a “violent, hateful, greedy rabble”.

Somehow, Watson’s wry wit had survived the threatening environment in which it was expressed. This was, after all, an investigation “hampered” by “the persistent threat of violence”.

At the beginning of the 139-page report, many sections of which were redacted to protect the safety of individuals or the integrity of intelligence operations, Watson describes his attempt to interview former, disgraced Victorian CFMEU leader John Setka.

“Given there was information available which was adverse to John Setka he deserved an opportunity to address it,” Watson’s report says. “I asked Setka to meet me. He responded: ‘I warn you watson you should hope you never cross my path, so go and fukk your mum and Irving’s, and leave me alone, you f*ckin fat ugly kunt.’ It will, thus, be necessary to proceed with only limited assistance from Mr Setka.”

Watson told me: “I try to make these things readable on the simple basis that it means they are more likely to be read” – a persuasive logic that’s uncommonly practised.

 “Rotting from the Top” argues that John Setka’s appointment to the Victorian leadership was a ruinous watershed for the union – and that his influence increased dramatically with the beginning of the Victorian government’s “Big Build”, a massive, ambitious civil infrastructure project announced in 2015 and which continues today.

In the report, Watson admits to being “left with the empty feeling that the Setka-led Victorian branch of the CFMEU was no longer a trade union, it was a crime syndicate. This was a uniquely Victorian problem … It is quite clear that the problems in Victoria were exponentially worse and far more dangerous than elsewhere.”

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/law-crime/2026/02/21/geoffrey-watson-the-cfmeu-and-the-wrath-the-victorian-government