True to form, the Australia Financial Review and journalist David Marin-Guzman last week published unsubstantiated claims about the CFMEU NSW (AFR 03/03/22: CFMEU whistleblower raises questions over ‘missing millions’). The claims were subsequently picked up and run by other media outlets.
The article contains numerous falsehoods and is an embarrassment to the publication and the journalist who wrote it.
Marin-Guzman alleges millions of dollars raised from the sale of the union’s previous office in Lidcombe is unaccounted for. He claims to have looked at “property records” that reveal the Union does not own the property on which its offices are currently located in Pyrmont but rather are owned by “Karmount Properties, an entity of the Karellas family”.
This is at best completely incorrect and at worst an outright misleading piece of journalism.
A basic check of records held with the NSW Land Registry Services would have shown that in 2017 the CFMEU (New South Wales Branch) purchased lots in a strata building where its office in Pyrmont is located, paid for by the proceeds from the sale of the previous property where it had its office, in Lidcombe. There is another owner of the adjoining lot.
The Property is strata and as is common in commercial and residential buildings there are separate lot holders. The CFMEU (NSW Branch) purchased and owns in full the majority of the lots in the building.
The CFMEU has not hidden anything. The sale and purchase of each property was properly finalised and is properly reflected in the financial accounts of the legal entity that executed the transactions, that being the state-registered union.
The state-registered union is properly constituted and functioning under the Industrial Relations Act 1996 (NSW) with members whose industrial interests are covered by State legislation and Awards. It is not “an almost defunct state registered entity”.
In choosing to publish false allegations against the union that a simple check of property records would have disproven, the AFR has failed a most basic test of journalistic standards.
The CFMEU NSW has sought an apology and complete retraction of the article by the AFR given the false and misleading statements it makes.
Darren Greenfield Secretary CFMEU NSW Construction Division
