Inequality writ large in the NSW hospitality industry as a company grows wealthy by denying a fair rate of pay to its workforce

Multimillionaire Justin Hemmes comes from a privileged background having inherited the bulk of his wealth rather than earned it independently of the family company.

Yet as CEO of M.R.V.L. Investments Pty Ltd since March 2015 at which point the Merivale portfolio was said to contain more than 50 restaurants, bars, pubs and hotels in Sydney, with an estimated value of more than $1 billion he kept the family company’s wages bill so low for est. 3,000 employees - lawfully so under a Howard Government Workchoices-era collective agreement - that words fail me.

Merivale.com, retrieved 22 January 2019:

Owned and run by the Hemmes family for over 60 years, Merivale began as an iconic fashion house started by John and Merivale Hemmes. Merivale’s fashionable beginnings were soon followed by a venture into hospitality, opening a Thai tea café within their Sydney CBD fashion building in 1970. From here, Merivale’s hospitality roots were firmly planted.

Merivale is now led by CEO Justin Hemmes, whose creativity and knack for pushing the boundaries has made Merivale what it is today. Hemmes has become a pioneer within the Australian hospitality industry, growing the ever-expanding Merivale portfolio to over 70 brands and venues.

Financial Review, 23 May 2018:

Prominent Sydney hotelier Justin Hemmes has ridden the property boom all the way to this year's Rich List.

Hemmes and his family have amassed a $951 million fortune via the ownership of 70 pubs, hotels, restaurants and venues in and around Sydney, including The Ivy on George Street in the heart of the CBD.

He joins the biggest group of Rich Listers, property magnates, who this year account for 51 of the 200 names. Hemmes also just misses being among the record 76 billionaires on the list.

ABC News, 12 November 2018:

The drinking and dining empire led by high-profile Sydney hotelier Justin Hemmes is facing a push to kill off a workplace agreement that some current and former staff say denies them weekend penalty rates……

A former Merivale staff member, Maddie Lucre, raised concerns about being denied weekend penalty rates.

Ms Lucre worked at the Coogee Pavilion from January 2016 until July this year. With the assistance of United Voice, where she works in an admin role, Ms Lucre made a claim against Merivale for the weekend and public holiday amounts she claimed was owed to her under the company's agreement.

She was offered $2,706.72, the amount she claimed she was owed, on the condition that she sign a non-disclosure agreement. No admissions of fault were made by Merivale.

"I know that if I keep my mouth shut then no-one's going to find out about this," Ms Lucre told 7.30.

"Merivale has never been held to account for the fact that they are potentially underpaying people."

Financial Review, 21 January 2019:

Merivale is reviewing the viability of its business practices due to the axing of a WorkChoices-era enterprise agreement that gave it a significant commercial advantage in the industry.

The Fair Work Commission on Monday terminated Merivale's long-expired 2007 EA that allowed the hospitality giant to pay some 3000 workers below the award – more than 20 per cent below in some cases – by not applying overtime or full penalty rates for almost a decade.

The decision, which will not take effect until March to give Merivale time to transition to the award, is the result of United Voice taking action on behalf of two casuals who complained they were missing out on thousands of dollars a year……

Ms Tones, quoted by the union's submissions, said that 71 per cent of the company's workforce were casuals and 48 per cent worked on some form of visa.

Under the agreement, casuals were not paid full evening, weekend and public holiday rates or even overtime.

United Voice said one employee was paid $6 an hour less than the award on Saturdays, $10 an hour less on Sundays and $25 an hour less.

The Fair Work Commission having found on 21 January this year it would not be contrary to the public interest to terminate Merivale Employee Collective Agreement 2007 which had passed its nominal expiry date of 21 December 2012, Merivale now appears to be hinting that if it were to pay proper award rates to all its workforce it might have to close one or more businesses because it may not be able to afford a higher wages bill.

Again, words fail me.

NOTE: Justin Hemmes joined Twitter in March 2010 as @justinhemmes. Although he seems to have tired of the account sometime in 2014 it is still active and Twitter will allow civilised comments on this site.

Meet Australian Prime Minister Eejit approximately 14 weeks out from a federal election

See this man?

He is Prime Minister of Australia and Liberal MP for Cook Scott John Morrison.

And so is this.

As well as this.

This poor excuse for a thinking leader is about to spend $6.7 million on a re-enactment of the voyage of Lieut. James Cook circumnavigating Australia.

Why is that remarkable? 

Because all Cook undertook in April-August 1770 was a limited exploration of the east coast of Australia captaining HM Bark Endeavour.

Circumnavigation of Australia didn't begin until 1801, by which time James Cook had been dead for a full twenty-two years.

This is an image of prime ministerial brain activity on 22 January 2019.

* Photographs of Scott Morrison found on Google Images.

Hard right ideology has so blinded the Morrison & Berejiklian Coalition Governments that water sustainability is at risk in yet another part of New South Wales in 2019

This particular coal mining project below has a long history and each step of the way Liberal and National politicians at state and federal level have supported the interests of foreign-owned mining corporations over those of local communities and ignored the need for intergenerational equity.

The O'Farrell & Baird Coalition Governments went to bat for the coal mining industry in New South Wales in 2014 after Wyong Coal Pty Ltd neglected to gain consent from a landowner, the Darkinjung traditional owners:

Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council v  Wyong Coal  Pty Ltd [2014] NSWLEC 3, 4 April 2014:

Wyong Coal  are not, however, the owners of the land the subject of the DA. Rather, the DA partially covers land owned by the applicant, the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council ("Darkinjung"). Moreover, the DA partially covers land over which a land rights claim has been made by Darkinjung under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983…..

The proposed development is State Significant Development under Section 89C of the Environmental Planning & Assessment Act 1979 (EP&A Act) as it is 'development for the purposes of coal mining', as specified in the State Environmental Planning Policy (State and Regional Development) 2011. The Minister for Planning and Infrastructure is the consent authority for the project. However, the Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) will determine the application under delegation. In addition to approval under NSW legislation, the project is also a controlled action requiring assessment and approval under the Commonwealth's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The Commonwealth will undertake a separate assessment and determination under its legislation.

The Berejilian Coalition Government in 2018 carried the flag for an amended Wyong Coal development application which bypassed the need for Darkinjung LALC consent:

Environmental Defender’s Office NSW, November 2018:

Wyong Coal Pty Ltd, which trades as Wyong Areas Joint Coal Venture, and Kores Australia Pty Limited, are co respondents. KORES Australia Pty Ltd, a fully-owned subsidiary of Korea Resource Corporation, is the majority shareholder of Wyong Coal Pty Ltd.

The case is being fought on four main grounds: climate change, flooding impacts, compensatory water and risks to water supply for farmers in the region.

Wallarah 2 involves construction and operation of an underground coal mine over the next 28 years, until 2046. It would extract five million tonnes of thermal coal a year. The total greenhouse gas emissions over the life of the mine will be 264+ million tonnes of CO2.

In approving the Project, the PAC chose not to take into account emissions which come from the burning of coal mined at Wallarah 2. Our client argues that the law wasn’t followed with respect to climate change impacts. The key ground with respect to greenhouse gas emissions is that the PAC failed to consider an assessment of downstream emissions from the project. Under the EP&A Act, the PAC was required to consider the public interest. ACA argues that in 2018, considering the public interest for projects such as coal mines mandates the consideration of principles of ecologically sustainable development, particularly intergenerational equity and the precautionary principle.

In addition, our client argues that the PAC unlawfully failed to consider the risks of the flood impacts and the potential loss of water occasioned by the mining project.  

The Project, located within the Central Coast water catchment, would have significant impacts on the Central Coast water supply and residents in the surrounding areas. 

It would permanently alter the landscape, causing flooding events that will only increase over time as the impacts of climate change are realised. The PAC approval proposes dealing with these devastating flooding events by first requiring the mine to try mitigation measures like putting people’s houses on stilts, relocating homes or building levees. If those measures don’t work, then the mine would be required to pay the owners of the properties for the harm. Our client says this simply is not a lawful way to mitigate harm from flooding. There is no evidence that the mitigation measures will work or that compensation is an effective way to remedy harm caused by flooding.

The mine is also likely to impact upon the Central Coast water supply and access to water for farmers in the surrounding region.  The mine proposes to construct a pipeline to deliver compensatory water to the Central Coast Council and provide emergency and long-term compensatory water supplies to farmers if they lose access to water on their properties. If compensatory water cannot be provided, the mine can agree to buy those farmers out. The approval does not cover how the pipeline and the compensatory water is to be provided. ACA argues that the mitigation measures proposed by the PAC in the conditions of approval are not lawful, primarily because they go beyond the power of the PAC to deal with environmental impacts of the Project.

The Morrison Coalition Government by the hand of Minister for the Environment, Liberal MP for Durack and former mining industry lawyer Melissa Price, gave the stamp of approval on 18 January 2018:

This is the second time in the space of days NSW residents have learned that Liberal-Nationals politicians have allowed a new coal mine to progress towards operational capability in New South Wales.

Both of these new coal mines Shenhua Watermark and Wallarah 2 represent threats to regional water security.

Australian Water Wars 2019: how NSW rivers were running on 22 January

The news cycle is such that even the dire straits the Murray Darling Basin finds itself in, with regard to environmental, cultural and township water flow security, is already fading into the background.

If we let it do so then it will be business as usual for the Federal, Queensland, New South Wales, Victorian and South Australian governments and, it is business as usual which is causing an ecological crisis in Basin waterways.

This is a snapshot of an interactive map supplied by NSW Water showing river flows on Tuesday 22 January 2019.

Every red marker against a river or section of river indicates that at that point the flow was less than 20 per cent of the natural flow.

You will note that even the coastal rivers of Northern NSW are running at less than 20 per cent of their natural flow.

Along the length of the Darling/Barka River many points like Brewarrina, Bourke and Wilcannia recorded zero natural flow passing on 22 January.

This was also a day when land surface temperatures were still uncomfortably high, with parts of the Murray-Darling Basin predicted to reach temperatures of 42-45+ Celsius.

Remind your local MP that they still need to stand up and be counted when it comes to legislating measures to mitigate climate change and need to be persistent in demanding their political parties bite the bullet on water management reform.

Scott Morrison's prime ministership and his opportunistic, jingoistic approach to Australia Day have become objects of derision

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is so desperate to create an election issue out of Australia Day and couch his absurd argument in terms of patriotism versus anti-Australian 'activists' that he and his cronies have taken to running tweets like this on social media.

Unfortunately for Morrison the advertising industry and probably the entire country have his measure and, they are laughing in his face.

Frustrated by our politicians? Australia Lamb has suggested we steal New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Arden. pic.twitter.com/ZFoSI4k3Jb

— SBS News (@SBSNews) January 21, 2019

Lack of wages growth for workers in Australia can no longer be ignored

One of the most blindingly obvious truths about Australian super funds

The 16 Industry SuperFunds operating in Australia are run only to benefit members, have low fees and never pay commissions to financial planners.

They have long had the reputation of performing well for members, so that a worker retires with a larger super balance than if he/she had joined a retail fund.

Needless to say that reputation is pooh poohed by a good many Liberal and Nationals politicians whenever the subject of compulsory superannuation came up.

It appears that it will now be harder for those same politicians to take that attitude now.

The Australian, 19 January, p.5:

Every one of the 50 worst-performing balanced superannuation investments over seven years has been operated by retail funds such as ANZ, Westpac and IOOF, with just one product offered by the for-profit sector making it onto the list of the top 135 performers.

In revelations that categorically bring to an end the fierce three-decade dispute between retail and industry funds over which is superior, secretive and highly detailed industry data obtained by The Weekend Australian shows that regardless of the investment timeframe or level of risk involved, retail funds are unquestionably consistently at the bottom and industry funds are consistently at the top.

Despite every worker being forced to divert a portion of every pay packet into compulsory super since it was introduced in 1992 — and the key choice most people face being whether to invest in an industry fund or a retail fund — no list of worst-performing super investments has ever been made public, with analyst companies refusing to release them.

Retail and industry funds account for more than $1.28 trillion of the nation’s retirement savings and the revelations back renewed calls from federal minister Kelly O’Dwyer this week for the creation of a Future Fund-style national retirement fund to keep the nation’s super savings out of the hands of the “many rent seekers and ticket clippers” in the sector.

The highly detailed data from SuperRatings, considered the most comprehensive and accurate in the nation and used by the Productivity Commission in preparing last week’s report into the $2.8tn sector, lists 278 “balanced” super options offered by the nation’s retail and industry funds.

Over the seven years to March 2018, of all funds in “accumulation” phase, where the member is still working, the 50 worst-performing were all operated by retail funds and all but one of the 17 worst performers were managed by Westpac’s BT or ANZ’s OnePath….

Retail funds have for many years argued APRA data showing their poor performance can’t be used to judge them because it looks at only the overall performance of “funds”, which usually operate numerous different investment options.This SuperRatings data specifically examines those individual options, negating that argument.