![\"Daniel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/613794fba97066da84d9551e886999607a0cd7de9453c1054011257fc7fa19a0.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nDaniel Clarke is a 37-year-old former bankrupt with a long history of failing to pay his debts.<\/p>\n
The one-time plumber\u2019s latest project is a bar that is under construction in the heart of Surfers Paradise.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Daniel Clarke is a 37-year-old former bankrupt with a long history of failing to pay his debts.\u00a0A Current Affair<\/p>\n
The bar is called Somewhere Good but right now it is a half-finished messy job site left behind by fed-up tradies whose payments are somewhere else.<\/p>\n
Brandon Cunningham is the builder who was brought in to lead the project at the last minute.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re out here to do work in good faith and get people\u2019s job done for them the best we can,\u201d Cunningham said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it hurts, it does hurt.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome nights we were knocking off at midnight trying to get this thing, race this thing in for his deadline, get it open, up and running for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The business was going to be a self-serve bar.<\/p>\n
Clarke is director and secretary of the company behind it, Omnia Hospitality Group, along with influencer and lingerie model Lili Eastwood.<\/p>\n
Eastwood has become the public face of the project.<\/p>\n
Cunningham and his fellow tradies were in some of the Instagram videos promoting the under-construction business, no doubt expecting to get paid for their hard work.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the start, we were quite nice about it. I just wanted to work with him, I wanted to get this thing done for him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cunningham sent two separate invoices to Clarke for work that began almost two months ago.<\/p>\n
He is still waiting for $41,000 to be paid, a loss which he describes as \u201cmassive\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt encompasses our total revenue, it pays our boys, it gets people up in the morning to come work for us, it\u2019s our reputation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cunningham isn\u2019t the only tradie still waiting.<\/p>\n
Dylan Saliba did the air conditioning work and said he was chasing $10,000.<\/p>\n
![\"Right](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/4317e6870141eba1ca2dda1ac584263c0e406cdec5f204a143dbfa17fb1d215d.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Right now the bar is a half-finished messy job site.\u00a0A Current Affair<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guy is full of promises, bit of a delusional character and it hurts,\u201d Saliba said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust promising, \u2018Yeah, yeah you\u2019ll have $5k, you\u2019ll have $5k\u2019, and just getting nothing and then he just goes quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyle Hely says he is still chasing $6000 for painting work.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day he actually looked us in the eyes and said he\u2019s paid us and here we are a month later and it still hasn\u2019t appeared,\u201d Hely said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the only guy in my business, so you know there\u2019s no one working on other jobs to cover the costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou drop a bunch of work to get here and help someone out who you think is a mate and this is how they treat you in return.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trying to catch up with Clarke isn\u2019t easy, but A Current Affair eventually spotted him down the road from his bar.<\/p>\n
He claims his legal team is disputing the unpaid debts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have professionals working on this right now and this is like entirely unprofessional to name and shame against this,\u201d Clarke said.<\/p>\n
The professionals he claims are disputing the debt is architecture firm DBI, which has a Gold Coast office located right above where the bar is being constructed.<\/p>\n
It is also where his father works as an architect.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re disputing it, you can go up and you can talk to DBI about it,\u201d Clarke said.<\/p>\n
A DBI spokesperson says the company has nothing to do with Clarke\u2019s mess.<\/p>\n
\u201cDBI has never undertaken any business activity or provided any advice to Daniel Clarke or the associated Omnia Hospitality Group, and neither Daniel Clarke nor the company has ever been a client,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny such suggestion otherwise would be spurious to say the least.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only link between DBI and this company is the father of the director happens to be an architect employed by us.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2019, Clarke was exposed as the plumber on a pushbike, masquerading as a fundraiser, ripping off veterans charity Redsix run by former soldier Mike Handley.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/e1a0766eef934075ac996ba797e9a93852aa4d447c60b56013652ab7a6453bb4.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The job site has been left behind by fed-up tradies whose payments are somewhere else.\u00a0A Current Affair<\/p>\n
On that day, Clarke ducked for cover inside a garage, refusing to answer any questions, before re-emerging a few years later spruiking a new alcohol drink called Easy Seltzer.<\/p>\n
Trent Collett was employed by him there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d go sometimes nearly two weeks without any pay,\u201d Collett said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d be borrowing money off other people, my parents, to put petrol in my car to be able to go and do my job.\u201d<\/p>\n
The father-of-two had an employment contract in place with Clarke but claims he was constantly chasing his pay, placing enormous stress on his home life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought I had to go and Google my boss to do a background check on him to find out if he was a decent bloke or not, but I wish I did,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d been living a lie with this guy for six months, I had no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
He claims he\u2019s still owed $10,000 as well as tax withheld from his pay that wasn\u2019t paid to the Australian Taxation Office.<\/p>\n
Only after Collett left Clarke\u2019s employment did he learn about his past.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I saw that article from six, seven years ago and we\u2019re still going through this and there\u2019s still people out there popping up that have been done over, I can\u2019t let that happen in another seven years,\u201d Collett said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t let that happen in another seven days where he screws anyone else over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cunningham took his pursuit for payment to social media, outing Clarke and his previous appearance on A Current Affair.<\/p>\n
Only after that post went public were any of his invoices disputed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing was questioned, everything was brilliant and great and awesome and good job guys and, you know, until payment was an issue,\u201d Cunningham said.<\/p>\n
When A Current Affair asked Clarke why he paid $3000 if he was disputing it, he said it was a part payment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can still dispute the markups and ask for a receipt of all the pricing that needs to come through from the material list,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cunningham has been providing a live spreadsheet to Clarke containing all those receipts.<\/p>\n
It seems Clarke hasn\u2019t shared them with his business partner Eastwood, who wanted to meet with A Current Affair and tell her side of the story.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s sent this invoice that we just want answers for as to what we\u2019re being charged for,\u201d Clarke said.<\/p>\n
A Current Affair showed Eastwood Cunningham\u2019s three separate emails sent to Clarke with a link to the live spreadsheet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can see that now. I never knew that information before,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Eastwood also hasn\u2019t seen a series of text messages sent from Clarke\u2019s phone, encouraging the tradies to \u201cgo after Lilli\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou and your mates should go legally hard against omnia group. Really try (to) destroy the company!\u201d the text message said.<\/p>\n
Eastwood said she felt \u201ccompletely blindsided\u201d by the messages.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy head is in scrambles right now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Collet described it as \u201cthe lowest of low\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow you can carry yourself and just walk around your neighborhood knowing that you\u2019ve done things like this?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Clarke is a 37-year-old former bankrupt with a long history of failing to pay his debts. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":["post-829298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}