The quote is attributed to the late civil rights activist Martin Luther King, who penned the phrase in a letter sent from Birmingham jail in 1963, in which he argued that governments could commit atrocities while technically not breaking the law.
Industrial Relations Minister Kelly O’Dwyer condemned Mr Setka’s tweet and called on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to do the same.
“John Setka has done it again,” Ms O’Dwyer tweeted.
“His vile slur against the Federal Government likening it to the Hitler regime is beyond repugnant”.
Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich called on Mr Setka to apologise for the tweet and “refrain from using such rhetoric in the future”.
“While John Setka is of course entitled to criticise the government’s policy, it is inexcusable to equate Hitler’s evil deeds that led to the extermination of six million Jews and millions of others to any current legislative actions or conduct so as to simply to score a political point,” Dr Abramovich said.
“When will public figures understand that such deeply offensive and inappropriate references cheapen and trivialise the Holocaust and the suffering of the survivors, and diminish the incredible courage shown by our diggers who gave their lives to vanquish the Third Reich?”
Mr Setka, who is the Victorian state secretary of the union’s construction division, rallied in Melbourne on Tuesday along with about 150,000 workers – and Labor politicians including Victorian premier Daniel Andrews – as part of the ACTU’s Change the Rules campaign.
Last month, he deleted an expletive-laden tweet aimed at the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the government’s building watchdog after a widespread backlash.
Mr Setka had provoked fresh threats to deregister the CFMEU from Prime Minister Scott Morrison after the union leader tweeted an image of his two young children holding a sign telling the commission to “go get f—ed”. He later deleted the tweet.
The Morrison government has been unable to secure crossbench support for its union-busting Ensuring Integrity Bill, which remains held up in the Senate.
In his tweet this morning, Mr Setka also quoted Thomas Jefferson and Mahatma Gandhi on the acceptability of disobeying “unjust” laws, however it is understood that the Jefferson quote is a phrase commonly misatributed to the American Founding Father.
Industry groups have estimated that the ACTU rallies being held around the country will cost $250 million in lost productivity – the equivalent of about 3000 full-time jobs.
The ACTU insists that the rallies should not be considered as industrial action – which may only be undertaken as part of enterprise agreement negotiations – but as political protests, dismissing criticism of its plan to shut down Melbourne as an attack on free speech.
ACTU Secretary Sally McManus, who has previously said she has no problem with workers breaking “unjust” laws to take industrial action, said the Morrison government was “out of touch”.
“All we want is for working people to have better job security and their fair share in pay rises,” she said.
“Productivity and profits have been going up, but workers’ wages have not and record low wage growth is a drag on the whole economy, especially for local small businesses.”