(Image: AAP/Lukas Coch)

What to make of CFMMEU officials, led by pantomime villain and alleged domestic violence perpetrator John Setka, being bombarded and attacked by disgruntled tradies, right-wing extremists and anti-vaxxers in Melbourne yesterday — when the CFMMEU opposes mandatory vaccination?

Further illustration that the anti-vax/far-right coalition that has emerged in recent months is both prone to violence — animals seem a particular target, for some reason — and that they’ll never let facts get in the way of a conspiracy theory. Despite the CFMMEU being a significant impediment to vaccination in the construction industry, Setka is apparently “Daniel Andrews’ bitch”. The protest was reminiscent of British anti-vaxxers violently attacking a former BBC building in London, oblivious to the fact that the Beeb hadn’t been there in years. Facts are not the strong suit of this crowd.

Andrews has done what Gladys Berejiklian rightly did in NSW, despite opposition from religious extremist MPs in her own ranks, and mandated vaccination in construction amid widespread non-compliance with public health requirements in the Victorian sector.

He also followed her example in shutting down construction given the levels of non-compliance with health orders in the sector and the need to enforce vaccination.

It’s also what Prime Minister Scott Morrison has ostentatiously refused to do — show leadership on the vexed issue of how far vaccination should be mandated in workplaces. He is too scared to offend extremists in his own ranks.

In contrast, ACTU secretary Sally McManus spoke of an attempt by the far right and anti-vaxxers to intimidate unions and pledged support for the vaccine mandate in construction and the shutdown.

Her position — articulated clearly and effectively — demonstrates how ideologically scrambled public health resistance has become. The anti-vax movement, if initially more left wing, has become increasingly a combination of far left and far right over the past two decades, now joined by ideologically incoherent “freedom” supporters, religious zealots, opportunistic fascist groups and conspiracy theorists always ready to see the dark hand of the New World Order behind every public health measure. There’s no left or right in this sordid mix, any more than there’s top or bottom.

And on the other side are business groups that want to get back to making money as quickly as possible even if plenty of people die, unions that have an interest in keeping their members safe and their industries open, and governments that know the only path out of the pandemic is vaccination.

Such ideological confusions and currents among the resistance represents much larger economic and social forces at work, as Crikey has long argued. But there’s a tendency among some public health academics to soft-pedal the extremism of such groups and urge a kind of compassionate understanding of vaccine hesitancy and denialism, insisting that they won’t be won over by being lectured and abused.

The attacks on the CFMMEU — to repeat, a union that opposes the vaccination mandate — illustrate that dialogue or engagement with such groups is pointless. These are people who have gone down a very deep rabbit hole. Businesses have a moral right to mandate vaccination for the protection of their employees and customers, even if the legal right may be contested.

Berejiklian and Andrews have backed them and pursued their own mandates. Morrison is too scared to do so. Another moment in the shift in real leadership and power from Canberra to the state capitals.