Career Boss still owed $2m from John Holland, court told

Career Boss Australia, the labour hire company suspended from the Torrens to Darlington project, told the South Australian Supreme Court on Friday it is still owed about $2 million by lead contractor John Holland for work already performed.

Barrister Tim Kentish, acting for Career Boss shareholder Robert Cammarano, told Associate Justice Graham Dart the outstanding payment was around $2 million and that the South Road contract made up the vast bulk of the company’s revenue, with little other work coming in.

Why it matters

Career Boss supplies workers on the $15.4bn South Road upgrade, the Adelaide section of the Torrens to Darlington project. Its contract was suspended on 18 October after the Sunday Mail reported a civil dispute before the Supreme Court, in which Cammarano alleges businessman Jamie Brown, described in evidence as a bikie, coerced a shareholder into transferring shares through threats. Brown denies the allegation, saying he never threatened any shareholder and that the claims against him are false. The South Road project team began investigating after a Cammarano representative raised the claims with Transport Minister Joe Szakacs’s chief of staff and Child Protection Minister Alice Rolls at a meeting on 11 September, and Szakacs’s office referred the matter on for review. The suspension means no new payments are reaching Career Boss while the dispute runs, even as the company presses John Holland for money it says is owed for work already done. Szakacs has since told state parliament the alliance reviewed the shareholders and found no red flags. ABC News described the episode, given Career Boss’s role in what it called South Australia’s largest-ever infrastructure project, as triggering an escalating political crisis for the Malinauskas government.

The numbers

Kentish told the court the $2 million payment, made in arrears under the contract, was close to due. During the hearing, Dart granted Kentish’s application for a temporary freeze on a bank account linked to Career Boss, pending further argument. Kentish also sought a subpoena for a recording of a meeting allegedly obtained by police. A Crown solicitor acting for the South Australian Police Commissioner asked for more time to consider the request before any recording was released, and Dart deferred a decision rather than ruling on it immediately.

Outside court, Cammarano said “we had a good win today” but did not elaborate further.

What’s next

The matter was adjourned until 16 November. Dominic Agresta, representing another Career Boss shareholder, told the court the contract had not been cancelled but suspended, and said it could be renewed once the dispute is resolved. Dart noted the government might be reluctant to do so given the publicity the case has attracted. Police Minister Michael Brown told reporters about an hour after the hearing that the suspension remains in force and that no payments are currently being made to the company. Until the Supreme Court resolves the ownership dispute and the frozen account, Career Boss’s position on one of the state’s largest road projects, and the $2 million it says it is owed, stays unresolved.

Sources: ABC News, “Court hears suspended Torrens to Darlington contractor still awaiting $2m”