CFMEU threatens leading Jewish community group, the Hakoah Club, over dispute with Parkview Constructions

The CFMEU has reportedly levelled threats against one of Australia’s oldest Jewish community organisations, warning it would bring pro-Palestine protesters to the site of a community club at the centre of an ongoing dispute with a major construction company.

The Australian reports that the infamous construction union, which is facing multiple allegations of corruption, warned the Hakoah Club it would rally at the site of its new community hub at White City in Sydney’s eastern suburbs after the Jewish group tore up its contract with Parkview Constructions.

A source told the broadsheet the scandalised CFMEU had threatened to bring pro-Palestine demonstrators to the planned protest against the Hakoah Club’s $95 million Paddington development for its union members and “on behalf of Parkview and the subcontractors”.

Revelations of the would-be protest come as the CFMEU faces mounting scrutiny over allegations that bikies and underworld criminal figures had infiltrated the Victorian branch of the union’s construction division. Allegations of bribery have also been raised against figures in the NSW branch.

Last month, the Fair Work Commission applied for a court order to place the CFMEU’s Victorian, Tasmanian, NSW, Queensland, NT and South Australian branches into administration, but the union intends to fight that application.

Questions have also swirled more specifically over the CFMEU’s links with Parkview Constructions, after the union’s NSW boss Darren Greenfield was allegedly captured on a hidden camera in 2019 bragging about his influence over the construction giant, The Australian reports.

In September 2021, he was charged with corruption offences. These charges are still before the courts and Mr Greenfield denies any wrongdoing. The Nightly does not suggest he is guilty, only that charges have been laid.

According to The Australian, Mr Greenfield sent an email to Sydney Grammar School’s Edgecliff preparatory school, which adjoins the Hakoah Club site, two weeks ago warning it planned to “organise an ongoing protest outside the site sometime this week”.

The email said the union decided to protest after “many weeks” of discussions with the developer and builder to resolve “the issues between the parties” had fallen through. The CFMEU said it had “no intention of disrupting your school and hopes to always minimise this”.

Plans to picket at the site have not yet eventuated.

The Hakoah Club has been the heart of Sydney’s Jewish community for decades. It selected the White City tennis courts in Paddington as the site of its new hub after selling its Bondi building in 2009.

The expansive $95 million development is set to house community, sporting and entertainment facilities, and was expected to open its doors by mid-2024.

The club entered a contract with Parkview Constructions — one of Australia’s biggest construction companies — in 2022, but announced it had terminated that contract in May 2024 citing the “lack of progress” on the site.

“After much deliberation and having sought relevant legal and professional advice, I wish to advise the Club has terminated the Building Contract with Parkview Constructions,” Hakoah Club president Steven Lowy said in a statement.

“The Board and Development Steering Committee believe this decision is in the best interests of the Club and the community.

“The Board is 100 per cent committed to recommencing construction with a suitably qualified contractor to complete the project as economically and as soon as is practical.”

The site has remained empty since.

The Nightly has approached the CFMEU for comment.