Victorian political aspirant questioned over family link to Winc.

 

Corporate business products supplier Winc Australia has become embroiled in a political controversy in Victoria with claims that a former state union boss failed to declare her interest in the stationery supplier.

 

According to a report in The Age, 36-year-old Luba Grigorovitch (pictured), who recently resigned from the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) to contest the safe Labor seat of Kororoit, has been accused by two senior union officers – with whom she has fought an “increasingly nasty battle” in recent years – of what they claim was a failure to declare a serious conflict of interest.

 

Documents submitted to the Registered Organisations Commission by the leaders of the union’s locomotive and tram divisions accuse Grigorovitch of having employed her brother’s stationery firm without declaring it as a potential conflict of interest.

 

The documents filed with the commission include more than 100 invoices, seen by The Age, for the purchase over three years of $133,000 of stationery and supplies for the union’s Queen Street office. There are 20 employees in the office, union financial statements show.

 

According to The Age, the stationery was purchased from Winc, a major office products supplier at which Grigorovitch’s brother, Robert, is national sales manager (print and marketing services). 

 

The union also employed The Grazing Station, a catering business owned by Robert Grigorovitch’s partner, to complete $10,000 of work supplying food and drink to union events.

 

Ruba Grigorovitch confirmed the transactions took place but said there was nothing untoward about them. She declined to elaborate on why the purchases were acceptable, according to The Age.