Victoria Police and Fair Work Commission are investigating a potential multimillion-dollar fraud, as well as allegations top official spent members’ money on cinema tickets and shopping at IKEA.
Two of Australia’s most prominent trade union figures, ex-CFMEU boss John Setka and the Victorian head of the Health Services Union, Diana Asmar, are facing a multi-agency investigation into allegations that more than $3 million of union money was paid to printing firms for non-existent or “ghost” services.
The Asmar-controlled Victorian branch, known as the Health Workers Union, allegedly funnelled through the scheme almost $2.8 million in union dues paid by some of the nation’s lowest-paid healthcare workers. It is also alleged the CFMEU separately sent $180,000 in members’ fees via the scheme now being probed by the FWC and detectives.
While Fair Work Commission general manager Murray Furlong said he could not provide details about an “ongoing operational matter”, he stressed that “deliberate or fraudulent alleged conduct relating to the misappropriation of funds will give rise to swift, focused and well-resourced investigation and enforcement action”.
When contacted by this masthead, the director of the print firms said he was advised by his lawyers not to provide comment. Disclosure statements show that from June 2020 to June 2022, Asmar’s salary increased by 17 per cent, from $171,000 to $200,000, excluding superannuation. For the Health Services Union, the revelations raise questions about why previous investigations and attempts to reform the union – which included the charging and conviction of several of its former senior officials – failed to clean up the culture within its largest Victorian branch.
A March 2024 memo written by a Fair Work Commission investigator reveals the union watchdog holds “concerns relating to the payment of reimbursements to Ms Diana Asmar by the Branch”, and is investigating an amount “totalling over $198,000 … received by Ms Asmar” between 2017 and 2021. One case study documented in the FWC memo involves Asmar’s apparent purchase of Gold Class movie tickets at Crown casino, an expense investigators have queried may not “relate to a proper business expenditure” of a union.
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