Australia news LIVE: CFMEU workers walk off job across nation ...

Mexican-inspired fast food chain Guzman y Gomez beat its prospectus forecasts but could not keep up with market expectations after delivering more than $1.5 billion in rising stock gains to investors just two months since listing on the ASX.

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Its shares dropped 4 per cent in early trading on Tuesday to $34.40 despite delivering sales and underlying earnings were above prospectus forecasts for the 2024 financial year, and revealing sales of its Mexican-inspired food in Australia rose 7.4 per cent for the first seven weeks of the current financial year.

GYG shares listed at $22 in June but rocketed more than 30 per cent within hours of listing. The group says it remains on track to achieve its prospectus forecasts for the 2025 financial year.

Sales across the global franchise network rose 26.4 per cent to $959.7 million driven by both fresh store openings and growing sales at stores which were already open.

“GYG delivered network sales growth of 26 per cent for the year, ahead of prospectus forecasts. This result was underpinned by strong comparable sales growth and the continued delivery of restaurant network expansion across Australia,” GYG founder and co-chief executive Steven Marks said.

Revenue for GYG, which operates its own stores and collects service fees from its franchisees, rose 32 per cent to $342 million, while the group’s losses rose to $13.7 million from $2.3 million the prior year as it funds expansion both in Australia and overseas.

Wilson Advisory’s James Ferrier noted that the local sales growth of 7.4 per cent for the year-to-date was also ahead of IPO Prospectus forecasts of 4.8 per cent.

“A modest beat on FY24 guidance and a strong start to FY25 SSSg represents encouraging momentum in the business,” he said.

The group expects to open 31 restaurants in 2025, on top of the 216 restaurants that were open at the end of the 2024 financial year.

“Intense media scrutiny” has temporarily derailed the court case that toppled the leaders of the NSW CFMEU over allegations they solicited $5000 kickbacks from a building company.

Darren Greenfield, 56, and his son Michael, 36, were the secretary and assistant secretary of the construction union until this month.

Sacked CFMEU NSW secretary Darren Greenfield (left) talking to MUA Sydney branch secretary Paul Keating on Sussex St Sydney yesterday.Credit:

That was despite the pair being arrested in September 2021 and charged with soliciting and accepting payments in exchange for preferential treatment to a building company.

The long-running case was scheduled for a three-day hearing in September where two prosecution witnesses would face cross-examination from the Greenfield’s lawyers.

But, on Tuesday, their barrister told Downing Centre Local Court the Greenfields were “no longer in a position to proceed”.

“My clients are the former state secretary and assistant state secretary of the NSW CFMEU which, on Friday, was put into administration,” solicitor Jillian Caldwell said.

“Darren Greenfield was terminated that day, Michael resigned two weeks ago after intense media scrutiny.”

Magistrate Greg Grogin informed members of the press, in the public gallery, that it was “no admission” of guilt on behalf of the Greenfields.

He set down the case to return on 29 October.

The case is still expected to proceed to trial.

The latest Widening the Gap report by Anglicare Australia has found the richest people hold 90 times the wealth of low-income earners, with the gap continuing to grow.

Executive Director of Anglicare Australia Kasy Chambers. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The average wealth of the highest one-fifth of income earners was $3.2 million, compared to the lowest earners bringing in $36,000, the report based on 2019-20 University of NSW analysis found.

In that time, the average value of superannuation assets also grew by 155 per cent while investment property rose by almost 100 per cent.

It means poorer Australians are copping the brunt of inflation, increasing prices – including supermarket prices – and often have no savings buffer.

Anglicare executive director Kasy Chambers said the disparity was fuelled by 20 years of tax and housing policy where breaks on capital gains and negative gearing have exacerbated a rental affordability crisis.

Chambers said the average rent is eating up more than 40 per cent of a person’s income compared to only 20 per cent two decades ago.

“Things like white goods and holidays have actually come down in price in real terms whereas the basics, particularly housing, particularly rent, have just skyrocketed,” she said.

“So if you don’t have any spare in your budget, then you’re feeling inflation way, way higher than those who got that spare, that fat, to cushion things.”

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Thousands of construction workers are risking fines this morning after the CFMEU was placed into administration by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, amid allegations of links to organised crime and corruption.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Fair Work Ombudsman said if a worker failed to turn up or walked off the job without permission, it could be a contravention of workplace laws.

A CFMEU official enters the union office in Melbourne as it went into administration.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

“Where an employee has engaged in unprotected industrial action, the employer is required under the (Fair Work) Act to deduct a minimum of four hours wages from the employee, even if the industrial action was less than four hours,” it said.

Rallies are planned at Melbourne’s Trades Hall in Carlton; at the NSW Parliament in Sydney; Queens Garden Park in Brisbane, the Parliament of South Australia in Adelaide, Woden Town Square in Canberra, Forest Chase in Perth, and in Cairns.

Construction workers could be heard chanting as they walked into the newly-built Sydney metro station Victoria Cross, opposite the Heralds’ offices.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the reaction to the union laws was not surprising, but called for calm.

“Obviously, when you appoint an administrator to a union and you move on a couple of hundred officials, there’s going to be blowback, we expect that,” he told ABC Radio on Tuesday.

“We want these protests to be peaceful today, but they’re not surprising when you take on the leaders of a union with the sort of behaviour that has been alleged in recent times.”

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has promoted division his entire political career.

Earlier this morning, Treasurer Jim Chalmers doubled down on saying Dutton was the most divisive leader of modern history, which Albanese at a Western Sydney press conference this morning backed.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony AlbaneseCredit: Alex Ellinghausen

“Opposition leader Peter Dutton has promoted division his entire political career. He always looks for what will divide Australians rather than what will bring Australians together,” Albanese said.

“In the last short period of time, just in the last 24 hours, we’ve seen examples of that, with Angus Taylor announcing $100 billion of cuts on the agenda from the Coalition government, it’s up to the Coalition to announce where those $100 billion of cuts will be.

“We know that Peter Dutton, unlike what will happen at this airport, he’ll be a reverse thrust on the economy. He will stifle the economy.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has labelled former CFMEU leader John Setka as someone “who will always look for publicity” as he is unfazed by protests across the country against forcing the union into administration.

John Setka appeared on Spotlight alleging a deal was put in place with Tony Burke.

Speaking at Western Sydney to formally announce Singapore Airlines launching direct flights to the new airport, Albanese said his government wants to make sure the union is free of corruption.

“My message is that the CFMEU have been placed in administration. We respect the work that construction workers do. It’s a tough job, and they do magnificent work, including here at this wonderful airport. What we want to do, though, is to make sure that their union is free of corruption,” he said.

“I think John Setka apparently spoke the other night. Bizarrely, I’m not quite sure why people gave him some more oxygen, but John Setka is someone who will always look for publicity. He’s someone who I’ve had one very brief conversation with in my entire life.

“He’s someone who … I expelled from the Labor Party, because his values, [aren’t] the same values as the Labor Party, and they’re certainly not the values of the overwhelming majority of the trade union movement in Australia.”

Deputy Liberal Leader Sussan Ley has accused Treasurer Jim Chalmers of engaging in political distraction after the treasurer unleashed a barrage of criticism over the Liberal party on Monday night.

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In a speech delivered at the Curtin Oration in Melbourne, Chalmers called Opposition Leader Peter Dutton the “most divisive” party leader in Australia’s history.

“He divides deliberately, almost pathologically,” he said.

Ley rejected the bold claim and accused the treasurer of hypocrisy, saying he was trying to “talk tough” in front of Labor colleagues.

“Divisive is to unleash the voice, spend $500 million and then say that if you vote no, you’re a bad person - that’s divisive,” she told Sky News on Tuesday.

“I feel a bit sorry for Jim Chalmers, he spent his whole life planning and plotting in Labor’s factual queue, only to come up with this sort of stuff.

“He’s got a PhD in politics, not economics, and that’s on full display.”

Chalmers doubled down on his remarks earlier this morning, saying the Liberal leader picks fights on national security because he “has no idea about economics”.

“He is the kind of person that when he sees division in our society, instead of trying to heal that division, he tries to pick at it and prey on it,” Chalmers said on ABC radio.

AAP

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke at the Western Sydney Airport with Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Catherine King.