Slow-to-pay chef Calombaris a master property investor

George Calombaris has a property portfolio worth at least as much as the $7.83m owed workers.

Masterchef judge George Calombaris. Picture: Mark Calleja

Celebrity chef George Calombaris controls a residential property portfolio worth at least as much as the $7.83 million his restaurant empire failed to pay 515 workers.

Calombaris, who lives in a luxurious Toorak mansion with his young family, paid $2.2m for a new weekender on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula in June last year without the need for a mortgage over the almost 6000sq m property.

The purchase was made 14 months after initial revelations that staff had been underpaid $2.6m. The Ten Network declared its support yesterday for Calom­baris after unions called for his dumping from MasterChef in respons­e to the Fair Work Om­bud­s­­man revealing the underpay­ments had blown out to $7.83m.

Celebrity chef George Calombaris and his properties.

As the controversy heated up, MAdE Establishment, the company controlling his restaurant empire, said all workers had been backpaid with the exception of a handful. The Arthurs Seat weekend home is owned in the name of one of the chef’s myriad corporate vehicl­es, Trical Beach Pty Ltd. His wife, Natalie Tricarico, is sole directo­r of the company and Calomba­ris remains a 50-50 shareholder with Ms Tricarico.

The five-bedroom French-provincial-style Toorak mansion, featuring an underground carpark and swimming pool, was purchased in Ms Tricarico’s name in November 2013 for $4.75m. Trical owns another Mornington Peninsula home at Safety Beach, bought for $580,000 in mid-2013.

As the ombudsman was investigating the full extent of the under­payments last year, Calombaris resigned as a director of MAdE Establishment. Over four months last year, he resigned as a director of 30 corporate vehicles.

Calombaris’s Toorak mansion.

Calombaris, who apologised yesterday to current and former staff, was not taken to court by the ombudsman after entering into an enforceable undertaking with the workplace regulator that includes a $200,000 “contrition payment”. The money will go to the government’s consolidated revenue.

He will make seven speeches over three years “to promote­ compliance within the … industry and to educate fellow industry leaders about the importance of complying with the Fair Work Act”.

The enforceable undertaking reveals Calombaris failed to meet a commitment to the Fair Work Ombudsman in 2015 to conduct annual pay reconciliations of em­ploye­es working at the Press Club Restaurant in Melbourne’s CBD.

The ombudsman sent a letter­ of caution to the Press Club after identifying an employee had been underpaid. It required the Press Club to conduct annual reconcil­iations of all employees paid under an annualised salary arrangement but the reconciliations were not done at the end of each year.

Calombaris’s Arthurs Seat house.

Calombaris is a founding and current shareholder of MAdE Establishm­ent, which operates the Press Club and Gazi restaurants, and three Hellenic Republic restaurants. The underpayment probe extended to some restaur­ants operated by Jimmy Grants, which shares common shareholders and directors with the MAdE group of companies.

Former Hellenic Republic employ­ee Orlaith Belfrage estimated she was owed $3500-$4000 because of unpaid over­time and being put incorrectly on a lower award classification. “A fine of $200,000 is nowhere near enough,’’ she said. “George should pay a serious price for this … He should be taken off MasterChef.”

ACTU president Michele O’Neil also backed his dumping. “Channel 10 and the sponsors of the MasterChef program need to consider the damage to their brand caused by their continued support” for him, she said.

Calombaris’s house in Safety Beach.

As well as misclassifying workers and putting them on lower award rates, the underpayment contravention included the failure to pay overtime, penalty rates, casual­ loadings, minimum award rates, shift allowances, annual leave loadings and payments for working through meal breaks.

Jo-anne Schofield, national secretary of United Voice, said the $200,000 payment was in­adequate. “If someone deliberately took $1000 out of someone else’s bank account, there would be a high likelihood of a criminal conviction for theft,’’ she said. “But when you’re a multi-millionaire­ restaurateur/celebrity chef, you can . . . get away with a ‘contrition payment’, and you get to keep your TV show, your huge profile and mansion, and keep raking in cash off the back of hardworking chefs, wait staff and bartenders.’’

Additional reporting: Remy Varga