When Melbourne restaurant-to-retail company Calia went into voluntary administration last month, its co-founder Jason Chang laid bare his struggles as a small business owner in an open post on social media.
Chang, who is also a City of Melbourne councillor, made the emotional revelation that he had “broken down in city council” while recounting the challenges of owning a business in Melbourne, and how the cost-of-living crisis had impacted so many families.
“I have now realised that as strong as I try to be, I am not immune from depression and anxiety,” he wrote.
Watch the latest news and stream for free on 7plus >>
“As I broke down, I realised that I needed help to carry the emotional stress I faced.
“Please don’t be afraid to ask for help — we all need a shoulder to lean on sometimes.”
But while Chang’s words were met with sympathy from other corporate elites, they stung for former employee Ha Nguyen.
Nguyen claims to have lost thousands of dollars as the victim of wage theft while working at Calia.
As reported by 7NEWS.com.au, Calia Australia Pty Ltd went into administration on June 28 according to documents filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
Calia, which was also co-founded by Ricky Thien, operates three physical restaurant stores in Melbourne, as well as two stores in Kuala Lumpur.
Nguyen had come to Australia from Vietnam as a temporary migrant, and worked full-time at Calia at the Emporium from May 2019 to August 2020.
Nguyen says he was stood down from his role as kitchen steward in March 2020 following a letter from Chang which announced that “the majority” of workers would no longer be needed as a result of COVID lockdowns.
It was about this time, the now 31-year-old says he checked his super fund account to find Calia had made only a handful of superannuation contributions.
After querying this with HR, in an email seen by 7NEWS.com.au, Nguyen was told the company was paying a superannuation guarantee charge (SGC), which Calia HR described as a “payment plan to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO)“.
According to the ATO, a company has to pay the charge if they don’t pay an employee’s superannuation on time, in full or to the right account.
The charge is more super than the company otherwise would have to pay.
COVID proved tough going for Nguyen, who, like many others, was forced to withdraw thousands of dollars from his super fund in April 2020.
Nguyen says he left Calia a few months later, with none of the super he was owed.
According to documents from the ATO, Calia should have paid Nguyen $3995.27 in super for the 15 months he worked there.
Instead, he was only paid $1,121.56, meaning he was owed almost $3000.
Over the next few years, COVID — and life — got in the way, and Nguyen’s quest to recover his super fell to the wayside.
He only recently began investigating the lost money again, contacting the ATO directly in June this year for help.
The ATO told Nguyen it would be almost impossible to recoup his lost super, and that it would “take at least a few years if I was lucky”.
The main issue was that the company that owed Nguyen super, Calia Payroll Pty Ltd, had gone bust in 2021.
This was news to Nguyen.
“I was not aware that (the company went into liquidation) which rendered my unpaid super as unrecoverable. I did not receive any email updates or contact in any shape or form,” he said.
“When I inquired (to the ATO) about the current Calia, they told me that the current company had nothing to do with my unpaid super.”
In a report to creditors from insolvency company Jirsch Sutherland, Calia Payroll, the employing company for Calia Group, went into liquidation on February 18, 2021.
Lawrence Yeow was listed as director, while Chang was listed as a former director and shareholder. COVID-19 was cited as the reason why the company had gone into liquidation.
It was not the first time a company associated with the Calia group had collapsed.
Yu Kitchen, an Asian restaurant located at Chadstone, ceased operating in March 2020.
The restaurant is listed as a business under Calia Australia Pty Ltd, with Chang serving as the director of the restaurant at the time.
Calia Australia Pty Ltd was also listed as a shareholder according to ASIC documents seen by 7NEWS.com.au.
Café Blush, a high tea Asian fusion café which was located at Melbourne’s Emporium, is listed as a business under the proprietary Café Calia — an entity related to Calia Australia.
It also shut down, with its business name listed as having been cancelled in 2021 according to the Australian Business Register.
Café Calia Pty Ltd was deregistered in May 2023. According to a liquidator’s report from October 2022, Chang was listed as the director while Thien was listed as a former director.
Despite this, the Calia group continued to pursue new business ventures, opening Calia Kuala Lumpur in June 2020, Calia Grill in March 2021 and had plans to open a restaurant store in Jakarta in late 2021/early 2022, with this last enterprise failing to eventuate.
“Why expand when you can’t even pay your current workers?,” Nguyen said.
7NEWS.com.au recently reported that Melbourne coffee company Puzzle Coffee also went into administration on June 28, 2023, the same day as Calia Australia.
The two companies have been appointed the same administrator from Jirsch Sutherland, with a spokesperson from the insolvency company confirming Chang is listed as the director of Puzzle Coffee.
The spokesperson told 7NEWS.com.au that both businesses had been severely impacted by COVID, and that both were continuing to trade “as normal” during the voluntary administration process, with Calia looking to restructure.
The spokesperson also confirmed Calia Australia was in debt by at least a couple of million dollars, with one of its creditors, restaurant-tech company Liven, owed an estimated $2 million.
According to the Victorian government, withheld superannuation is a form of wage theft.
The ATO’s most recent estimate shows that $3.4 billion of super went unpaid in 2019‑20.
In June 2023, the Protecting Worker Entitlements Bill was passed through parliament by the Albanese government, which works to better protect workers from superannuation theft.
“It is simply not good enough that employees are missing out on their superannuation,” Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke said earlier this year.
Nguyen said while he worked at Calia, the majority of the staff were either international students or temporary migrants.
7NEWS understands several other present and former Calia employees have also experienced issues with their superannuation.
Some present employees were reluctant to publicly speak about the problem due to fear of losing their jobs.
With no hope of getting back any of his unpaid super, Nguyen said all he wants is for someone from Calia HR to reach out.
“I want Calia to be responsible,” he said.
“I don’t think they have the decency to admit they did anything wrong.
“At the end of the day it’s just about treating your workers right.”
He also said he had “very little sympathy” for Chang’s current business woes.
“He’s in a much better place than a lot of people,” Nguyen said.
“I have very little sympathy I can offer him right now.”
Calia was contacted for comment.
If you have more information about this story, please email Molly Magennis at MMagennis@seven.com.au
Stream Free on