Helping you find TRUTH. Cold hard facts. 100% truth. No Misinformation. “Corrected when Wrong”.
Perth, Western Australia
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THIS IS WHAT REHABILITATION SHOULD LOOK LIKE.
Every person in these photos has something in common.
They are 100% DEBT FREE.
Hundreds of Shalom House residents who have worked through their debts and now owe nothing.
At Shalom House, getting someone off drugs is only part of the job. If we send someone back into the community drug-free but buried in debt, unemployed, without a licence, without savings and without learning how to manage money, what have we really fixed?
Rehabilitation has to be about rebuilding the whole person and preparing them for life.
Our residents work. They learn to budget. They take responsibility for the debts and financial mess left behind from their old lives. They pay what they owe, learn to save and start building a future rather than continually cleaning up the past.
Every resident who graduates from the Shalom House program graduates 100% debt free.
No unpaid debts hanging over their head.
No financial wreckage being carried into their new life.
For many, getting to this point has taken discipline, sacrifice and months or years of doing what they need to do rather than what they want to do.
That is what you are looking at in this photo.
Not just 20+ people who are debt free.
You are looking at people taking responsibility for their lives and building a foundation they can actually stand on.
Getting someone drug-free is one thing. Teaching them how to live free is another.
That is rehabilitation.
What’s your thoughts…?
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
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REAL-TIME ADDICTION ADVICE — 24/7
If you are trying to help someone struggling with addiction and you’re constantly asking yourself, “What do I do now?” — I built this app for you.
It is designed for families, individuals, counsellors, rehabilitation services and organisations working with people affected by addiction.
I have put an enormous amount of work into developing it and training it around my addiction methodology, experience and approach.
You can explain what is happening in real time — what the person is doing, what they are saying, where they are in their addiction journey and what you are dealing with — and the app will guide you through what to consider and what to do next.
And sometimes that advice will not be what you want to hear.
It will tell you what you need to hear.
The app remembers the context of your conversations, so you can come back and continue rather than having to explain the entire situation again every time.
For professionals and organisations, it can also become a practical support tool for staff dealing with difficult addiction situations where they may be unsure of the appropriate next step.
There are subscription options for individual users as well as workplaces and organisations with multiple staff.
The app can be customised to your organisation and your branding.
I genuinely believe this fills a gap.
Families dealing with addiction are often frightened, exhausted and completely unsure what to do. Professionals can also encounter situations where another perspective or structured guidance is valuable.
That is exactly why I built it.
If you are helping someone affected by addiction, give it a try.
pet-assistant.replit.app/
This app provides addiction guidance and educational support. It does not replace qualified medical care, professional clinical judgment or emergency services.
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MENS PROGRAM - BUILDING FUTURE
This week the “men of Shalom” had a great night attending “Global Heart” church in Joondalup, on Saturday the guys enjoyed a rare but well deserved rest day where we had time to catchup on washing and some meal prepping for the busy week ahead.
The morning was followed by our gathering for the families at family church. Sunday they headed off to Malaga where they attended “Dream Builders” church where we shared in worship and some testimony during fellowship and as always lovely tea and coffee supplied by the church.
Every day, the Shalom House Men’s Program is packed with routine, purpose, growth, hard work, and a lot of faith and hope. The “Program” is designed to equip residents with real life-skills, a sound work ethic, and qualifications that set them up for a brighter future.
There has been much work performed at our main location, Lexia property, on the new church and installation of the dog wash pod, paving, rendering, plumbing, carpentry and painting. Through faith and work, education, community and support, we are re-building men and their lives.
Shalom House, “Leading the way in Australia in Holistic Rehabilitation, Reintegration & Re-Socialisation”.
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KEEPING THE STANDARD IN A BUSY SEASON
This week in the Shalom House Metals Shop has been a busy one, with jobs moving in and out and plenty happening across the workshop.
We finished up work on one trailer and we’re now putting the final touches on the heavy duty trailer. It’s been a big job, but we’re nearly there.
From there, it was straight into the next one. We’ve started another full trailer restoration, stripping it right back, removing the rust from top to bottom and rebuilding it properly.
We’ve also started a job for our block at Lexia, extending post and pipe and getting plenty of welding done along the way.
Another big win this week was getting our new welding workbench into the shop. It’s another solid piece of equipment that will help us improve the quality of our work and continue building the workshop up. We’re very grateful for it.
Jobs have been rolling through the doors lately, which means the boys are staying busy, working with their hands and learning how to maintain the same standard regardless of what job is put in front of them.
That is where the growth happens. Learning to stay focused, take pride in the work and do things properly even when the pressure is on and there is plenty happening around you.
Proud of the effort from the whole shop again this week.
We are all Grateful for every opportunity to keep learning, keep working and keep becoming better men in the process.
Shalom House, “Leading the way in Australia Holistic Rehabilitation, Reintegration & Re-Socialisation”
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LEARNING, GROWING & SERVING AT SHALOM CAFE
Another big week at Shalom Cafe, packed full of exciting bits and pieces, plenty of learning, and lots of opportunities for our ladies to put their skills into practice.
We were thrilled to welcome Amana Living back to the cafe for another morning tea, and Providence Lifestyle popped in for a lunch catch-up. We love seeing local organisations make the cafe part of their regular outings and continuing to build relationships within our community.
Our cake kitchen has also been busy, with a number of custom cake and cupcake orders completed throughout the week. From the decorating bench to the coffee machine and everything in between, there is always plenty happening behind the scenes.
It has also been fantastic watching our staff settle into their new roles with ease. They are finding their own groove, growing in confidence and picking up valuable skills along the way.
What they are learning here goes far beyond hospitality. They are developing communication, teamwork, time management, responsibility, customer service and workplace skills that they can carry with them long after their time at Shalom Cafe, whether that means taking those skills into their own homes and families or choosing to continue pursuing a career in hospitality after completing their program.
LEARN IT. TEACH IT. DELEGATE IT.
Every shift is another opportunity to learn, grow, serve and prepare for what comes next.
Shalom Cafe
754 Great Northern Hwy, Herne Hill
Open Tuesday-Sunday | 7.30am-3pm
08 9303 2561
Shalom House is, “Leading the way in Australia in Holistic Rehabilitation, Reintegration & Re-Socialisation”.
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WE ARE UNASHAMEDLY A FAITH BASED REHAB
We are unashamedly a faith based rehabilitation centre. We don’t rehabilitate Christians even though they all need it.
If you don’t like McDonalds or KFC then don’t go there, me I like Hungry Jacks
It’s the same with rehabilitation programs…!
If you don’t want anything to do with Christianity then don’t come here. There are many great rehabilitation programs to choose from.
Yours truly
Pete
facebook.com/share/1DtCmyhw8…
Read more 👉 go.epochtimes.au/qQbira
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WHAT IF WAR BREAKS OUT?
Nobody wants to ask it. So I will.
As I have said, I've just come back from Britain and I saw a country I didn't recognise. Not the buildings, they're still there. The thing underneath. I went through London, across England, up through Wales, and I talked to people everywhere I went. They're worried. Not a few of them. Everywhere.
And I came home and looked at Sydney and Melbourne and thought, how far behind are we?
So here's the question, and I want it asked properly rather than muttered in a pub.
If war broke out tomorrow, would Britain hold? Would Australia?
Not would we win. Would we hold together.
Because look at what's already happening with no war on. Conflicts from the other side of the world being fought out on our streets. Police standing outside synagogues and mosques. Rallies and counter-rallies over a war we're not even in. Australians who won't go into parts of their own cities on a Sunday.
That's now. That's peacetime.
And at the same time the ADF can't recruit and can't hold the people it's got. No war, no crisis, and we still can't fill the ranks. That's not about anybody's background. That's all of us. Ask yourself how many people you know who'd put their hand up. Any of them.
Then add what our own spy agency says out loud.
Foreign governments are already reaching into this country and pressuring Australians by leaning on their families overseas. Not in a war. Today.
So you tell me we're ready.
Here's what I actually believe. A country doesn't get to build cohesion after the shooting starts. You either did it in peacetime or you find out you didn't when it's too late to fix.
And nobody in this country has ever been made to ask whether we were doing it. Not when the intake was set. Not when the housing fell behind. Not when the schools filled up. Not once. There's no minister who has to answer for it and no mechanism that forces the question.
Britain didn't decide to become what it is. It just kept going and never stopped to ask.
That's the bit that frightens me.
Not any group of people. The fact that nobody is required to ask, so nobody does, and one day you wake up and the answer is already fixed.
I don't know what would happen if war broke out tomorrow. I don't think anyone does.
But a country that can't ask the question in peacetime has already answered it.
What's your thoughts…?
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
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HOW MANY PEOPLE CAN AUSTRALIA ACTUALLY ABSORB?
Since returning from Britain, I think we're asking the wrong question about immigration. We argue about whether it's good or bad and how many visas to issue. The better question is simpler. How many people can Australia house, educate, treat, build for and integrate each year?
The ABS released the latest figures this month.
In the year to 31 March 2026 Australia's population grew by 392,700. Net overseas migration accounted for 292,100 of that, roughly three-quarters.
I'll give you the other side of that straight away, because it matters. Migration is falling, not rising. That 292,100 compares with 309,500 the year before, and it peaked at 556,000 in the year to September 2023. Seven consecutive quarters of decline. And 1.4 per cent growth isn't extreme by our own history.
So this isn't a crisis post. It's a capacity question.
Every additional person needs somewhere to live. They use hospitals, schools, roads, power, water and transport like the rest of us. When people already here can't afford a house, it's reasonable to ask whether the rate of growth matches the rate we're building.
Britain made me think about a second capacity we rarely measure because it's harder. Our capacity to integrate.
I met migrants there who arrived 20 years ago, worked, raised families and embraced the country they chose. One Uber driver was himself a migrant and was deeply worried about the scale of it now. That conversation stayed with me, because it shows how useless it is to frame this as migrants versus locals.
The issue isn't different food, faith or traditions. Australia has gained enormously from all of it. The issue is whether underneath the differences there's enough shared language, values and responsibility to hold us together.
Keep your heritage. Nobody should have to erase where they came from to become Australian. But Australia shouldn't have to erase itself either.
Which is why immigration policy can't just be about filling jobs or hitting a number. Government should be asking whether housing and infrastructure can cope, and whether the rate allows integration to actually happen.
If we end up as hundreds of communities living beside each other with little connecting them, we haven't built a multicultural Australia. We've just put a lot of cultures inside the same border.
I'd rather we had this conversation now, while we can still decide what success looks like.
What's your thoughts…?
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
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HOW DO YOU UNDO THIS?
Since coming home from the UK there is one question I haven’t been able to get out of my head. If a country allows migration to move faster than integration for decades, and eventually parts of that country lose the common identity that once held people together, how do you undo it?
One of the most important conversations I had in London was with an Uber driver who was himself a migrant. He had arrived around 20 years ago, made Britain home, integrated, worked and built a future for his family. He wasn’t anti-immigration—he was immigration. Yet he was deeply concerned about the scale of migration today and what he saw as the loss of the England he had embraced.
That conversation matters because it destroys the simplistic argument that this is migrants versus locals.
I have friends in Australia from all over the world. They came here because they wanted what Australia offered. They worked, started businesses, raised families, contributed, learned our way of life and became Australians while still retaining their heritage.
That is migration at its best.
The problem isn’t somebody eating different food, practising a different religion or remembering where they came from. Integration doesn’t require somebody to erase their history.
The problem comes when enough people live within a country without developing enough connection to the country around them. If communities increasingly speak different languages, live separately, hold conflicting expectations and have little shared national identity, eventually you have to ask what still binds everybody together.
And this is where the debate becomes incredibly difficult.
If governments eventually decide migration has been too high or integration has failed, what exactly do they do? You cannot turn around and blame the migrant who arrived 20 years ago, obeyed the law, worked, contributed and built a family. He did exactly what the country invited him to do.
You cannot judge somebody’s loyalty by their skin colour, birthplace or religion either. That would catch the very people who have embraced their new country and contributed enormously to it.
So prevention matters.
Before bringing people into a country, government should be asking more than whether there is another visa available. Can we house them? Can our hospitals cope? Can our schools cope? Do we have the infrastructure? And just as importantly, are we successfully integrating the people already here?
Because integration isn’t just the migrant’s responsibility. Government has to create the conditions for it, and the host country has to be confident enough in its own identity to explain what people are being invited to join.
Keep your heritage. Keep your traditions. Keep your faith. Bring the best of where you came from and add it to Australia.
But there still needs to be an Australia underneath all of us.
That is what Britain made me think deeply about.
The question isn’t simply how many people should we let in.
The much harder question is: how many can we successfully welcome, house and integrate while keeping the common identity that makes us one country?
Because if we get that wrong for 20 or 30 years, I genuinely don’t know how you undo it.
And that’s exactly why Australia should be talking about it now.
What’s your thoughts…?
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
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IF I'M WRONG, SHOW ME. IF I'M RIGHT, WHY IS NOBODY ASKING?
Facts are facts. If I've got something wrong in what I have posted, show me and I'll correct it publicly, in the post, where everyone can see it and apologise. I want no part in misinformation, lies or click bait.
When someone tells me to prove it, I send them the document and the paragraph number. Every post I write comes from public records anyone can read.
So if it's factual, the question isn't about me. It's why nobody else is asking.
You can abuse me and threaten me all you like. I've dealt with that my whole life and I won't stay silent, “no matter what you do or say”. Abuse doesn't change a fact. I'm not on any side and I have no axe to grind. I'm just trying to understand how Australia ended up in the mess it's in.
Cold Hard Facts. Corrected when wrong. No misinformation.
What's your thoughts…?
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
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$195,000 OF MEMBERS' MONEY WENT TO A COUNCIL CAMPAIGN. THE CANDIDATE WAS AN OFFICIAL'S PARTNER.
Union members pay fees for representation at work. Here is one thing those fees bought.
Geoffrey Watson SC found that the CFMEU used $195,000 of members' money to support a political campaign for a candidate for election to Melbourne City Council.
His own comment on it: it is not immediately apparent how that could be in the interests of the general membership, but the candidate was, after all, the domestic partner of one of the branch's most senior officials.
In the same section he records a matter now before the Federal Court, where the General Manager of the Fair Work Commission is seeking answers from the decision-makers as to why they spent in excess of $300,000 supporting the re-election of the secretary of an entirely different union.
The allegations include that former powerbrokers in the CFMEU went to efforts to conceal or withhold information relating to the gift. That union has since been placed into administration and its secretary removed.
That second matter forced the books to be rewritten.
At paragraph 35 of his third bi-annual report, covering the period ending 23 February 2026, the administrator records one alteration of significance compared with the previously published financial reports. During 2024-25 the Fair Work Commission investigated whether there were breaches of the law concerning donations made by the Victorian-Tasmanian branch in the 2023 financial year to indirectly aid the secretary of that other union. As a result of that investigation, the administration took steps to rectify the accounts.
The accounts did not show what the money was for until a regulator went looking.
Both sit in a section of Watson's report about a fund called Building Industry 2000. It holds about a million dollars. Its two directors and shareholders are the former secretary and the former president. Its accounts are rarely audited and produced only sporadically, and one official told Watson there are not many records at all.
Where the money came from is murky.
A former secretary said it was raised through the union's Grand Final breakfast, golf days and race days, and that it takes a slice of up to 20 per cent from the vending machines on CFMEU sites.
Why it exists is the part that matters.
That same former secretary explained it had been set up to help pay for CFMEU officials to stand for government and union elections. Using a union's money to fund candidates in a union election is illegal.
He said the fund was totally separate to the CFMEU, which meant those controlling it could spend on union elections without disobeying the law.
In April 2025, without notice to the membership or the administrator, the fund's registered address was moved to the former president's home.
The steelman is genuine.
Unions have always been political organisations and are entitled to campaign, including in local government. Members join knowing that. And all of this was found because records existed and a regulator did its job.
Sit with the two facts side by side anyway.
Members' fees supported a senior official's partner into elected office. And a million dollars of members' money sits in a fund whose whole purpose, on its own founder's account, was to do legally what the union could not do directly.
Cold Hard Facts. Corrected when wrong. No misinformation.
What's your thoughts…?
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
Sources:
Rotting from the Top, Geoffrey Watson SC, 27 January 2026, tendered to the Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU as exhibit GW-13, paragraphs 246 to 257. Third Bi-Annual Report of the CFMEU Administrator, paragraph 35, period ending 23 February 2026, tabled in the NSW Parliament.
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HE WAS PROMISED A UNION SAFETY JOB WHILE AWAITING TRIAL FOR A BASHING
In September 2023 a man was appointed a delegate and health and safety representative of the CFMEU's Victorian branch.
Geoffrey Watson SC, investigating for the union's administrator, calls him the worst kind of violent bikie, the national president of the Hells Angels, and a long-term criminal with multiple convictions.
The timing is the part that matters.
Watson found he was promised the appointment just before he was to stand trial for a brutal bashing. He was convicted three months after taking the job.
A health and safety representative has statutory powers. They can direct that work cease. Watson's own figures: closing a building site for a day costs a builder between $50,000 and $500,000 depending on size and complexity, and a Tier One executive told him closing its sites for a day would cost a million.
Watson also sets out what these positions were worth. More than $200,000 a year, sometimes more than $300,000. Often a car. Paid at skilled rates despite being unskilled. No physical work, and if they came to site at all, a spot in an air-conditioned office with Foxtel and the betting channels.
He puts that against what the job is supposed to be. Ordinarily, the position of a delegate is one earned by skill, dedication and long service to the union. It would usually take years before an ordinary worker could become a delegate.
He was not on the list of twelve bikie delegates the Victorian president sent to the national secretary in July 2024. Watson names him as the proof that list was incomplete.
And this was not confined to one period.
In early 2025, during the administration, another man was appointed a health and safety representative of the same branch. Shortly after his appointment he was arrested for murder.
The steelman is Watson's own, at paragraph 38.
He says adverse findings were made only where he was satisfied the conclusion was correct and the criticism justified, and that wherever there was doubt the benefit went to the person who could be harmed. He had no power to compel evidence. And criminal convictions do not disqualify a person from union office or from working in construction, and they should not. People are entitled to work.
I have not named him here. The report does, and so has the ABC.
Sit with the position anyway. Health and safety representation exists to protect workers from harm. On these sites, for a period, it was a job you could be promised while awaiting trial for a bashing.
Cold Hard Facts. Corrected when wrong. No misinformation.
What's your thoughts…?
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
Sources:
Rotting from the Top, Geoffrey Watson SC, 27 January 2026, exhibit GW-13, paragraphs 38, 172, 213, 215, 353 and 358, and case study ten. ABC News, 12 February 2026, reporting the report's findings. Court reporting of the 2022 charges and the 2023 conviction.
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THEY SAID ABSOLUTELY NO OFFICIAL WAS A BIKIE. HE FOUND THEY KNEW IT WAS FALSE.
In June 2016, after newspaper reporting linked a paid union official to a bikie protest, the CFMEU issued a formal statement. It said the CFMEU can confirm absolutely that no CFMEU official is a member of an OMCG.
Geoffrey Watson SC, investigating for the union's own administrator, wrote this at paragraph 346 of his report.
These statements were false.
Those who made the statements knew they were false. The truth is that bikies and OMCGs were massively over-represented in the Victorian CFMEU under Setka's leadership, they held influential positions, and they even controlled some of the larger building sites.
And then, one line later: it was the old executive who brought the bikies into the CFMEU.
Eight years after that denial, on 30 July 2024, the Victorian president wrote to the national secretary identifying twelve bikies who had held positions as delegates or health and safety representatives. He said they were no longer representatives of the branch, having been reclassified as workers on the tools, stood down pending investigation, or employed directly by their employer.
Watson's finding on that clean-up, at paragraph 360: the action taken was nothing more than a sham. Even when stripped of their CFMEU credentials the same bikies remained on the same sites, on the same pay, wielding the same power. It even looks as though one was never actually removed as a delegate.
His view of why: merely an attempt to fend off criticism and an attempt to avoid or delay the appointment of an Administrator.
The list was also incomplete, and Watson names the omission. One man not on it was promised his appointment just before he was to stand trial for a brutal bashing.
Why these positions were worth having is in the same report.
Delegates and health and safety representatives were paid more than $200,000 a year, sometimes more than $300,000. They were often given a car.
They were paid at skilled rates though unskilled, did no physical work, and if they came to site at all were given a spot in an air-conditioned office with Foxtel and the betting channels.
The steelman is Watson's own, at paragraph 38.
He says the report contains strong findings, that adverse findings were made only where he was satisfied the conclusion was correct and the criticism justified, and that wherever there was doubt, the benefit of it went to the person who could be adversely affected. He had no coercive powers. The current administration has since published policies on this and removed the officials concerned.
Sit with the eight years anyway. A public denial in 2016. A sham removal in 2024. And in between, the sites.
Cold Hard Facts. Corrected when wrong. No misinformation.
What's your thoughts…?
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
Sources:
Rotting from the Top — The CFMEU in Victoria During the Setka Era, Geoffrey Watson SC, 27 January 2026, tendered to the Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU as exhibit GW-13, paragraphs 38, 213, 345, 346, 347, 353, 354, 358, 360 and 361. CFMEU statement quoted in the Herald Sun, 12 June 2016.
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THEY SET ASIDE SIX TIMES MORE TO DEFEND TWO MEN THAN TO SAVE THE UNION
On 17 July 2024 the Fair Work Commission's General Manager, Murray Furlong, said publicly he was deeply concerned about the alleged conduct and commentary that organised crime has infiltrated several state branches of the division, including that it appears to be embedded and ongoing.
The union was about to lose control of itself.
Two days later, its New South Wales branch paid more than $3.1 million into a solicitor's trust account. The money was to cover the future legal fees of its secretary and his son, both then facing charges.
Geoffrey Watson SC investigated it for the union's administrator. His finding on the purpose: the idea was, at least ostensibly, to attempt to place the money beyond the control of an incoming administrator.
Here is the line from his report that stopped me.
Five hundred thousand dollars was set aside to save the CFMEU. Six times that much was set aside to defend two men.
Watson told the Commission the matter had been mentioned a few times and had a one-day hearing in the local court, and that lawyers racked up 900 grand. He recommended the union act to recover up to $890,000 of it.
Watson found each of the two men was involved in making the decisions that would confer a massive benefit upon themselves, and that two other senior officials were complicit. He found the branch executive sought an estimate of the future defence fees from the moment the takeover was foreshadowed. He concluded the union is entitled to recover several hundreds of thousands of dollars from four named officials for the damage which they caused.
Then the resolution.
Watson found it was designed to protect the fact of the payment from disclosure to the regulator and from disclosure in the branch's accounts, and that it also had the effect of concealing the payments from the ordinary membership.
A senior official told the committee the resolution was necessary to ensure proper compliance with reporting requirements. Watson's footnote: the reality is the resolution was proposed to defeat reporting requirements.
Now what happened next, which is the part that makes the whole thing plain.
The money came back. Watson told the Commission on oath that the three-odd million was recovered by the union, all except about $44,000, and he did not know whether that was recovered in the end. The $500,000 was returned as well.
And on 29 April 2025 both men pleaded guilty.
The father was charged with four counts of receiving or soliciting a corrupt benefit and pleaded guilty to two after two were withdrawn. The son pleaded guilty to two counts. Watson records in a later report that the father was jailed.
Their own lawyer had already explained why they would seek a plea deal. It was because they would no longer be able to use union money to pay their legal fees.
I should say plainly that Watson's report, written before the pleas, was careful about them. He noted his account of the charges came only from the regulator's statement of facts, that both men had reserved their defences, and that he drew no adverse inference from that. That caution was right at the time. Events have since overtaken it.
The steelman is still real.
Unions indemnify officials for legal costs as a matter of course, and the presumption of innocence applied while it applied. Watson concedes the members might lawfully have voted to fund the defence had they been asked.
They were not asked.
The union set aside six times more to defend two of its officials than to defend itself. And when the union's money stopped, the defence stopped with it.
Cold Hard Facts. Corrected when wrong. No misinformation.
What's your thoughts…?
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
Sources:
In the comments below
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Sources:
Report of Geoffrey Watson SC on the Greenfields' legal fees, tendered to the Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU as exhibit GW-12, paragraphs 148 and 149 and footnotes 60 and 78. Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU, Day 8 transcript, 11 February 2026, P-699 to P-701. First Bi-Annual Report of the CFMEU Administrator, February 2025, on Watson's recommendations. ABC News, 29 April 2025, on the guilty pleas. Rotting from the Top, exhibit GW-13, paragraph 264. Fair Work Commission statement on the CFMEU, 17 July 2024.
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AUSTRALIA'S BIGGEST COMPANIES FUND THE LIBERAL PARTY. NOT ONE OF THEM DECIDED TO.
The Cormack Foundation is the Liberal Party's investment company. It held net assets reported at close to $90 million and has paid the party tens of millions of dollars over decades.
I went looking for where its money comes from. It is all on the Electoral Commission's register, and it is not donations.
The Commonwealth Bank, $15,372,870. Wesfarmers, $9,764,959. National Australia Bank, $8,692,121. BHP, $7,093,214. Rio Tinto, $6,220,833. Then Westpac, ANZ, Telstra, Woolworths, Coles, Foster's, Transurban and the listed investment companies. One line is simply labelled Receipts from Investments.
Those figures are the exact entries on the register. Aggregate the spelling variants and several go higher, so if anything they understate.
Alongside them are the brokers and custodians, JB Were, Goldman Sachs, Pershing, Finclear, Berndale. That is what a large share portfolio looks like on a public register.
That is what dividend income looks like. Cormack owns shares in those companies and is paid what every other shareholder is paid.
Which means this.
Australia's largest listed companies fund one of its major political parties, and not one of them chose to. No board voted to give a political party anything. No shareholder was asked. The money moves because a party's investment company owns the stock.
The steelman is complete and it must be said.
This is not a donation and nobody involved has done anything wrong. Investment companies hold shares. Companies pay dividends to shareholders. Cormack is a lawful entity that has been doing this since 1988.
Sit with the shape anyway.
When people talk about corporate money in politics, they mean donations, and they go looking on the donations register. The largest corporate contribution to an Australian political party is not on it, and never has been, because it isn't a donation. It's a dividend.
Cold Hard Facts. Corrected when wrong. No misinformation.
What's your thoughts…?
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
Sources:
AEC Transparency Register, Detailed Receipts, all years — every payer to the Cormack Foundation Pty Ltd, by amount and receipt type.
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THE UNION WROTE THE RULE. THE BROKER PAID THE UNION. THEN THEY SPLIT THE PROFITS.
On the Electoral Commission's disclosure register, an insurance broker has paid CFMEU entities $11,468,621. Every dollar recorded as an other receipt, not a donation.
Here is what those payments are, and a royal commission documented it in 2015.
In 2002 the union's New South Wales branch reached an agreement with the broker. The broker would pay the union a dollar amount for every employee covered by its income protection scheme.
From 2003 the union included an income protection clause in its standard enterprise agreement. The Royal Commission's words: the effect of which is to provide a very substantial financial benefit to the union.
The size of that benefit is in the report. From 2003 to 2009, over $230,000 a year. From 2010 to June 2013, over $680,000 a year. It tripled.
Then in June 2013 the union stopped being the middleman. It took a half stake in the insurance company itself, alongside the broker. The union holds 5,000 shares. The broker holds 5,001. The board included the union's then secretary, a long-serving former secretary who by then worked for the broker, and other union figures. From that point the two of them simply split the profits, half and half.
So the union writes into its own enterprise agreement that workers hold the insurance. The broker arranging it pays the union per worker. Then the union buys into the insurer and shares the profit.
And here is what the Royal Commission actually found, which is the part that matters most. The union does not routinely, if at all, disclose that financial benefit to the employees on whose behalf it acts in enterprise negotiations. The clause has created an environment in which there are inherent conflicts of interest between union officials and the workers they represent, and a substantial systemic risk of breaches of fiduciary duty.
The workers whose pay funded it were not told.
The steelman is genuine. Income protection insurance is a real benefit, injured workers get paid, and group schemes are cheaper than individual cover. Union-linked insurance has existed for a century, and the payments themselves were disclosed on a public register the whole time.
And it isn't one union.
The same broker appears on the register paying the AWU Victorian Branch $3,640,418, the AMWU $1,260,648, the ETU NSW $886,023 and the AWU NSW $615,650. Across every union on the register it comes to $18,098,692.
Sit with what happened next anyway. A royal commission published all of this in 2015. And the payments kept coming, on a public register, for another decade.
Cold Hard Facts. Corrected when wrong. No misinformation.
What's your thoughts…?
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
Sources:
Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, Commissioner Dyson Heydon AC QC, Final Report, December 2015 — findings on the CFMEU NSW income protection arrangements and the U-Plus joint venture. AEC Transparency Register, Detailed Receipts, all years.
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THREE BODIES LOOKED. NONE OF THEM ACTED.
Before anyone asks how criminal infiltration of Victoria's construction program went unaddressed for years, look at what happened each time somebody did look.
It starts earlier than most people realise.
A letter of complaint was logged by Jacinta Allan's office in October 2022, when she held the infrastructure portfolio. She has since conceded the correspondence was not processed quickly enough.
The same letter went to the Prime Minister six months later.
The first body was the government's own infrastructure authority. In a letter to Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton in May 2023, Allan said she had been advised that the major transport infrastructure authority's director-general Kevin Devlin had uncovered no evidence of systemic, widespread, or organised criminal activity on its worksites.
The second was Victoria Police.
It assessed the allegations and took no action, deeming they did not meet the threshold of criminality. Patton confirmed that himself.
The third was the anti-corruption commission.
In July 2024, as Premier, Allan referred the alleged corruption in the CFMEU to IBAC. IBAC told her office it did not have the jurisdiction. In February 2026 it took the rare step of saying so publicly. Former Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass put IBAC's reason plainly: IBAC at the time said we can't deal with this because we don't have follow-the-money powers.
That is the gap.
IBAC's powers reach public officers and public bodies. Once public money is paid to a contractor who hires subcontractors, it moves down the line and out of reach. IBAC has been asking for the power to follow it since 2017, and successive governments did not give it.
Here is the proof that the gap is the whole story.
IBAC's Operation Perseus charged 38 people between August 2024 and May 2025 with 369 offences. Fourteen have been convicted. The most recent, Philip Caccamo, a former Victorian Building Authority employee, pleaded guilty to accepting more than $700,000 in bribes over four years to facilitate the approval of at least 69 builder registrations. He was sentenced to 36 months.
IBAC can act, and it acts well, when the target is a public officer.
The steelman is real and it belongs to the government.
Agencies must work within the law Parliament gives them, and none of these bodies did anything improper by staying inside their remit. Allan also points to action taken since: Victoria Police's Taskforce Hawk had laid 93 charges as at June 2026, and the Labour Hire Authority had cancelled 164 licences after its powers were strengthened.
Sit with the design anyway.
The anti-corruption body could reach a building authority employee taking bribes. It could not reach the money once it had passed into private hands. The former head of IBAC, Robert Redlich, is among those who have publicly called for a royal commission.
Cold Hard Facts. Corrected when wrong. No misinformation.
What's your thoughts…?
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
Sources:
The New Daily, 16 July 2024, on the October 2022 letter, the May 2023 letter to Chief Commissioner Patton, and Victoria Police's assessment. ABC News, 17 and 19 February 2026, on the July 2024 IBAC referral and IBAC's public confirmation. ABC News, 29 June 2026, for Taskforce Hawk and Labour Hire Authority figures. IBAC, Operation Perseus charge and conviction figures, and IBAC Insights 47, April 2026.
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A BUREAUCRAT PICKED THE BID THAT WAS $70 MILLION HIGHER.
This is one paragraph from the section that was cut out of the report.
Watson was told that on a Victorian government project, a senior bureaucrat suggested the contract should be accepted which was $70 million higher, because it was the one which enjoyed CFMEU endorsement.
Senior Counsel Assisting put it to him directly. This is the price of buying the peace?
Watson answered: Yep.
That exchange is on the transcript of a public Commission of Inquiry. The paragraph it came from, numbered 113, is not in the published report.
Here is the limit on it, in Watson's own words. He was told this by one person he had met a couple of times. He said he formed a very high opinion of them, and then added, I've been tricked before, but he felt he was being told the truth. He had no power to compel anyone and he never spoke to a politician. This is one account from one unnamed source, and he said so.
The section it sat in was about governmental inaction. Watson's finding there was not that anyone was bought. He is explicit about that. He dismissed out of hand the idea of some age-old connection between Labor and the unions, and pointed out that Setka had turned on the party so completely he was promoting candidates against it.
His finding was fear.
The CFMEU could bring the Big Build to a halt, and politicians of every stripe and colour love cutting a ribbon on a big project.
The steelman belongs to the bureaucrat, whoever they are.
Watson's own report sets out what a stoppage costs. Closing a building site for a day costs a builder between $50,000 and $500,000 depending on the size and complexity of the job, and one Tier One executive told him closing its sites for a day would cost a million. Choosing a contractor who will not be shut down is a defensible judgement against numbers like that. It might even have been right in the narrow sense.
Sit with what it means anyway.
Somebody weighed seventy million dollars of public money against industrial peace, and paid.
Cold Hard Facts. Corrected when wrong. No misinformation.
What's your thoughts…?
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
Sources:
Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU, Day 8 transcript, 11 February 2026, P-726 to P-727, evidence of G Watson SC on paragraph 113 of the excised draft; exhibit GW15. Rotting from the Top, exhibit GW-13, paragraph 172.2026.
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HE LOOKED FOR THE POLITICAL CONNECTION AND SAID IT WASN'T THERE.
I want to publish this before anything else I write about the CFMEU and politics, because it cuts against what a lot of people expect, including some of you.
Geoffrey Watson SC wrote a section about governmental inaction that was removed from his published report. It was read back to him under examination on 11 February. Here is what it said, and what he actually found.
The deleted sentence was this. It's appropriate that politicians and public servants should share the responsibility for what has happened for allowing the CFMEU to run out of control.
Then he was asked for his theory. His answer began: I dismiss out of hand the suggestion which would be one floating around, which would be some age-old connection between Labor and the unions. He said relations were strained, and that in Victoria Setka had turned on Labor with such vehemence that he was promoting candidates against it.
Asked whether individual politicians might have been compromised, he said there might have been some who owed the CFMEU for their endorsement, there might have been people friendly with Setka, and for all he knew they could have been crooked themselves. Then this: I didn't find any of that, but I wasn't looking for that. I wasn't looking into corruption in the Labor Party, I was looking into corruption in the CFMEU.
He never spoke to a current or past minister. He did speak to senior bureaucrats, privately. He had no power to compel anyone, and he said a proposed regulation that would have given him broader powers was abandoned during the Ravbar proceedings.
His actual explanation was fear. The union could stop the Big Build, and politicians of every stripe and colour love cutting a ribbon.
The steelman for the sceptics is fair, and Watson makes it himself. He did not go looking, so his finding is an absence of evidence rather than evidence of absence. He also said he wished a politician had rung him and offered to talk, and none did.
Sit with it anyway. The man with the most access and the most reason to find it looked at what he had and said it wasn't there. I'm going to report that as carefully as I report everything else.
Cold Hard Facts. Corrected when wrong. No misinformation.
What's your thoughts…?
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
Sources:
Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU, Day 8 transcript, 11 February 2026, P-720 to P-728, evidence of G Watson SC on the excised governmental inaction section; exhibit GW15.
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