Staff at Melbourne building company say wages went unpaid as employer threw lavish parties

Shirtless and flexing, Mike Harris sits on a mechanical bull, lapping up the attention from drinkers at an inner-city Melbourne bar.

It's mid-2024, and the building boss is throwing a work party where his staff say the drinks have been on him all night.

He's struggling to get up on the bull, but it doesn't stop him trying again and again.

In a video taken from the party, Mr Harris can be seen slowly toppling from the mechanical bull five times in less than three minutes.

For Paloma Escobedo, who worked for Mr Harris for five years and once considered him a friend, that moment on the bull sums up her former boss — a man who has overseen multiple business failures in the past decade, but has got back up each time and found a way to keep running construction companies.

That extravagant bar blowout was also the moment Ms Escobedo realised her former boss's business was losing its shirt.

"That was … the first week that I got my payment late," she says, of the months of wages she alleges she hasn't been paid.

Since 2017, Mike Harris has overseen four company collapses with unpaid debts in the millions.

Left behind by the most recent collapse are clients who have lost their life savings, staff who couldn't pay their mortgages and subcontractors left out of pocket.

They're now speaking out — telling stories of what they know about the lead-up to each of Mr Harris's company collapses, including a long history of the building boss throwing flashy parties and allegedly prioritising his own home renovations during times when his companies were struggling.

Over the past 10 years, many former staff members, clients and subcontractors have made complaints to courts and regulatory bodies about the businessman.

But many of these people say with little meaningful action taken, the repeated failings of Mr Harris's businesses highlight larger problems within the building industry.

A small painting business rapidly grows, and spending takes off

Mike Harris started his career as a painter who former staff say operated a small business out of his St Helena rental in Melbourne's outer north-east.

By 2015, he was rapidly expanding his business.

"Every week it would always be like, 'we are busy, quick hire another person, get an ad up on Seek'," former staff member Hilary* remembers.

In about 2015 or 2016, Mr Harris amalgamated his business with a building company run by his dad, Ron Harris, to create a large renovation company using his father's building licence.

In 2016, another staff member, Lisa*, says she started to realise all was not right with the company, MJ Harris Group.

"We would go to order fittings or something and then Reece plumbing would be like, 'You can't, your account hasn't been paid for a month or two,'" she says.

She says at the time, it was hard to understand, because payments would have been taken from customers for supplies.

She says she also started hearing stories about subcontractors who were owed large amounts of money.

One of those subcontractors, Terry*, told the ABC he was owed $130,000 by Mr Harris's business at one point, having not been paid for several jobs.

"He was most of my work at the time, which was my mistake," the subcontractor says.

"In the end I stopped working for him, I said I wouldn't finish the job unless he paid me.

"Then he paid me — but I was still owed $25,000."

Lisa says she then also realised she and other staff were owed superannuation payments.

She made a complaint to the Fair Work Ombudsman but didn't hear back.

Then in December of 2016, Ron Harris died of cancer.

Mr Harris lost both his father and his growing business's only building licence.

It meant the company suddenly couldn't do larger jobs that required a building licence.

One client, lawyer and former Boroondara mayor Jim Parke says his home renovation was supposed to start in September 2016.

He says Mr Harris blamed delays on neighbours being difficult and building surveyors, but didn't tell him that the real problem after December of that year was the company's lack of a building licence.

By May of 2017, Mr Parke lost patience and demanded Mr Harris refund his $35,000 deposit.

Mr Parke says he had to go to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), which adjudicates building disputes, to eventually get his money back.

"I didn't recover the deposit, damages and interest owed until January 2018, nearly 16 months after payment to Harris," he says.

"The MJ Harris Group has been on borrowed time for nearly a decade."

Staff worked on Harris's home renovations while business struggled

Both Lisa and Hilary say before the renovation business went bust in April 2017, Mr Harris had staff work on renovations for his family home in Diamond Creek in Melbourne's outer north-east.

Between them, they were aware of a nursery, rumpus room, kitchen and an ensuite being remodelled across 2015 and 2016.

But soon after that, in early 2017, Lisa remembers Mr Harris starting to speak about the company's financial struggles and outlining plans to put it into administration.

Both Lisa and Hilary recall a company meeting where Mr Harris told staff the business was going into administration.

He had another business set up — MJ Harris Carpentry — and told staff he had contracts ready for them to sign to move across to the new company without missing a day's work.

This arrangement was part of a deal Mr Harris struck with creditors when his company was on life support.

Lisa says Mike told staff "everyone will get paid what they are owed if we do it this way".

Company documents show that when it went into administration, MJ Harris Group owed at least $800,000 to creditors including staff and suppliers.

The ATO was the biggest creditor, owed $411,000 or more than half the total.

Under the deal, most creditors could expect to recover between 8c and 10c on the dollar of what they were owed, while MJ Harris Carpentry took on responsibility for paying employees and subcontractors, totalling $187,000.

It was a deal the ATO tried to block, but failed.

Builder alleges he was left out of pocket

Months after the failure of MJ Harris Group, Hilary says her boss hired a driver to chauffeur him around to jobs, with his staff joking that he thought he was a real-life Harvey Specter, the wealthy lawyer from the television show Suits.

Mr Harris then solved his building licence problem by paying to use the licence of another builder, Daniel Johnson of DKJ Constructions, in an arrangement known as licence lending.

There is no suggestion that Mr Harris was acting unlawfully.

The Victorian Building and Plumbing Commission said builders were allowed to engage other trades as subcontractors, provided they don't hold themselves out as a registered builder.

The commission also notes that builders are also responsible for work done using their licence.

Daniel Johnson says Mike Harris offered to pay him a wage so he could use his licence.

"Basically I got in with him … and trusted him to oversee a few of these jobs, and have since found out what he's like," he says.

Mr Johnson says he was not paid the money he was promised and has been left out of pocket himself.

He says he then found out Mr Harris had been paid by clients for jobs done under his licence but hadn't finished the work.

Mr Johnson says he has since contacted clients to finish the work.

"I've had many sleepless nights over this," he says.

Spending continued as building costs rose, workers say

In 2020, as Victoria went through a series of COVID lockdowns, MJ Harris Carpentry was able keep operating because it was in the construction sector.

Former worker Henry* says during this time there was plenty of work as many Victorians had forced savings and pumped them into home improvements.

But as the state opened back up in 2021, things got tricky for construction companies.

Supply costs skyrocketed with many builders collapsing and others having to closely watch their expenses.

While Mr Harris blamed a later business collapse on these factors, Henry says during this period his former boss loved hosting large parties for staff.

"There would be 60 to 80 people at the big parties, Mike paying for drinks all night long," he says.

And on Friday, he says, drinks would be supplied to the office.

He wasn't the only one to notice this spending.

Michelle Wellings began working for MJ Harris Group in late 2021 and she instantly noticed the "party culture".

In the eight months she was with the company, she attended three or four larger parties at different bars in Melbourne.

She says between 50 to 80 staff would attend with partners, with the drinks paid for all night.

"I wasn't there for particularly long and I just made the assumption that previous projects had been quite lucrative."

Before she left the renovation business, during the same period when these parties were being thrown, she learnt staff weren't being paid superannuation.

She complained to Mr Harris.

"He sent out a company-wide email saying he had entered into an amnesty … with the ATO and superannuation was going into a clearing fund and that is why we were being paid sporadically," she says.

Ms Wellings says when she started asking Mr Harris questions about this email, she was promptly paid most of her superannuation, but worried other staff were still owed money.

She made an online complaint to the ATO and requested it investigate.

She says the ATO called her back six to 12 months later and told her over the phone it had closed its investigation and "Mike was completely up-to-date".

Subcontractors walk off jobs as payments allegedly stall

By the end of 2023, Ms Escobedo says she discovered the company hadn't bought supplies for a job, even though the client had paid for them a year earlier. She says she quickly became aware this was a problem on multiple projects.

Henry says he also was aware the company was having money problems around this time.

"Subbies would be calling me asking me, 'What is going on? Why aren't we getting paid? I can't get onto Mike'," he recalls.

"We would go through more than one plumber in a job — maybe two, three plumbers — because they would do one stage and they weren't getting paid so they wouldn't come back."

He says clients were also ringing him in tears, trying to understand why their renovations weren't being completed.

At the end of that year, he says, things got worse.

"People from management were telling us it was going bad and we had no money, they were warning us to start looking for a new job," he remembers.

But at the same time, Henry says, he and other staff members were working on major renovations at the Diamond Creek house owned by Mr Harris.

Henry says from late 2023 into 2024, there was a period of about six months where he was regularly working on renovations for Mr Harris's home.

"There was excavation, there was the new pool put in, there was carpentry, there was painting, there was tiling and steel work," he says.

Building permits show a $66,000 deck was approved in November 2022 and a $158,000 pool was approved in February 2023.

At the time, Henry says staff couldn't understand why they were being directed to work on renovations for the boss, while projects were stalled for customers who had paid for renovation projects.

"We should have been working on their houses that they have already paid for," he says.

Paloma Escobedo says she and two other design colleagues also worked on the home renovation for Mr Harris.

A subcontractor who worked on Mr Harris's home renovation, Ryan Bridgman, says it was a big project that he estimates was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"This is like an extension you put into a house in Camberwell or Kew, the quality of it," he says.

He says subcontractors were working at discount prices to impress the building boss.

Melbourne couple's renovation incomplete

Lenny Winsel and his wife had organised for MJ Harris Group to complete a $250,000 renovation for them, with the work due to start in mid-2024.

The company delivered the design work before the couple paid the next instalment.

"We were told the payment was meant to supply the finishes and to kickstart the construction costs, which includes demolition," Mr Winsel says.

He says delays followed, which Mr Harris could always explain.

But by early this year, the couple had waited long enough and asked for a refund of the $95,000 that had been paid for work that was not done.

"He did say that he'll pay us back next week, the following week, which he never did," Mr Winsel says.

The money still hasn't been returned.

"We just kind of felt stupid to be honest that we could have believed an individual like Mike Harris, a very, very likeable, trustworthy person, to actually fall victim to his lies."

In this same period, MJ Harris Group was often not paying its staff.

Ms Escobedo says by the time she quit this year, she was owed nearly $30,000 in wages and superannuation.

"He will promise you like, 'I'm invoicing some clients this weekend or today' or whatever and 'I'll be paying you tomorrow or over the weekend,'" she says.

"Not every single time it was a false promise, but most of the time."

She says she called the Fair Work Ombudsman a few times and the ATO, but "never really had any clear instruction or clear direction of what to do".

At one point, she directly texted her boss, telling him to stop running his failing renovation business.

"My text said something like, 'Yeah this needs to stop, like this is clearly not working, maybe you're better off just sticking to painting and carpentry,'"

But Mr Harris continued on with the business.

Henry left MJ Harris Group at the end of 2024 and says he was also owed about $30,000 in wages and superannuation.

He also noticed his wages not being paid from about mid that year – the same time Mike Harris was hosting the party with the mechanical bull in Footscray.

It was Christmas of last year that was the breaking point for him, when the financial stress from not being paid was impacting many aspects of his life.

"Missed mortgage payments, having my car insurance lapse, having my health insurance lapse, I owed money to my mum, having to take money out of my savings, at Christmas time not being able to go away on holidays or pay for presents," he says.

"Just overall embarrassment."

When he wasn't paid initially, Henry says Mr Harris always promised it would happen and had a plausible reason for the delay.

And then he was eventually owed so much, he says, he felt like he had to stay with the business to recoup his money.

"Most people would have been in the same boat, 'I just have to keep working so he pays me,'" he says.

Back in 2017, when MJ Harris group failed for the first time, staff were moved to another company controlled by Mr Harris, MJ Harris Carpentry.

MJ Harris Carpentry and another of Mr Harris's companies, MJ Harris Painting, went into administration in March last year, owing more than $6 million — most of it to the ATO for unpaid tax and staff super.

But by this time, the old company that had previously employed workers, MJ Harris Group, was back in business.

Mr Harris told administrators that it had "only recently re-commenced trading", company documents show.

When MJ Harris Carpentry went into administration in 2024, Ms Escobedo says it was confusing for her.

"Mike was just literally transferring this company to a new one," she says.

"So we only needed to sign a new contract with this new company and that was it.

"Same staff, same position, same wage, same everything."

Harris defends track record

The ABC sent extensive questions to Mr Harris via his lawyer, but he did not provide answers for publication.

In a statement, Mr Harris says his businesses completed over a thousand projects "including award-winning work and hundreds of five star reviews from clients".

He says the construction industry has faced significant pressures in recent years.

He strongly defends his track record.

"It would be wrong to judge my businesses solely by a small number of complaints when the broader history reflects strong client relationships, quality work and meaningful opportunities created for many people over more than a decade," he says.

Regulators accused of failing to act

Staff and clients tell the ABC they are frustrated that Mr Harris has been able to keep operating despite his business failures and a history of complaints that now goes back almost a decade.

Mr Winsel is among at least three clients who have complained to Domestic Building Dispute Resolution Victoria.

He complained in June this year.

"They did look into the case and as it turns out, they were not able to get hold of MJ Harris or they couldn't get a commitment from MJ Harris to make do on his part," he says.

He started legal action against the company in VCAT in September, but before the case could be heard MJ Harris Group was liquidated by the NSW Supreme Court for failing to pay debts to a supplier.

The ABC is aware of another case that was also waiting to be heard at VCAT when the company went bust.

Mr Harris's companies have also failed to obey two court orders that they pay former workers who were owed money.

Staff say that complaints about Mike Harris's businesses to the Fair Work Ombudsman and the ATO have also gone nowhere.

Terry, the former subcontractor who was left out-of-pocket in 2016, says regulators have failed.

"I've got a real gripe with the system, the way the ATO let him keep trading, they just let him run amok and now he owes $4 million," he says.

In County Court proceedings last year, Mr Harris has admitted he personally owes the ATO more than $4 million in tax debts run up by his companies.

An ATO spokesperson says they could not comment on individual taxpayers but, speaking generally, it has prioritised recovering unpaid super — including by making company directors personally liable for the debts and making them bankrupt if they don't pay.

The FWO says it is investigating.

The Building and Plumbing Commission, which replaced the Victorian Building Authority this year, says it hadn't had a complaint about MJ Harris Group until this year and is now investigating.

In July, the liquidator of MJ Harris Carpentry, Rajiv Ghedia, told creditors that Mr Harris may have committed offences including failing to act in good faith, improper use of his position as director and trading the company while insolvent.

The allegations, contained in a statutory report, have not been investigated by the corporate watchdog, ASIC, which has requested Mr Ghedia provide it with a supplementary report.

Mr Ghedia declined to comment.

With four company failures behind him, Mike Harris is now running another painting and carpentry business.

A subcontractor who was hired in the days after the September collapse of MJ Harris Group says he is already owed money for four weeks work and that payment is more than a month overdue.

As the number of creditors owed money by Mike Harris has grown — there's one question they say liquidators and regulators have failed to answer.

"I would love to understand where the money went," Mr Winsel says.

*Names have been changed.