Rejigging Mrs Keddie's property portfolio ... Missing bits from 4 Corners cult report ... The Elf hones his advocacy as he steps into street brawls ... Bailed-up by Hatzistergos ... DFAT's fat-headed super-injunction
Russell & Sarah's living room
Double Pay sale
IN real estate news to hand Raine & Horne Double Bay has Sarah Key's property on the market for $3.5 million, plus.
Sarah administers back pain treatments to Prince Charles and others and is the wife of former high-flying, and even higher charging, solicitor Russell Keddie (now in retirement).
The Double Bay spread comes with five bedrooms, library and study, a "stainless steel island kitchen", a "vine framed" north facing balcony, a Harris Hobbs garden and a Leslie Wilkinson stairway.
Russell transferred the property to Sarah not long before the Keddies train wreck.
Sarah subsequently had to stump up $4.5 million to settle some of Russell's bankruptcy liabilities.
Russell's Double Bay studyHer Bungan Beach property was also listed for sale, but has now been taken off the market and, according to The Sydney Morning Herald, is leased for $1,350 a week.
Russell and Sarah are looking to shift into an Elizabeth Bay apartment.
Times couldn't be tougher.
See: Unpicking Russell Keddie's bankrupt estate
See: Keddies Kapers (and the forgotten London property)
A missing corner
DID you watch last Monday night's 4 Corners?
It was about a religious cult that moved from Germany to the north coast of NSW, under the inspiration of a mad, molesting, self-appointed Anointed One called Scott Williams.
Williams speciality was sexually assaulting young males who had been trapped in his cult, Christian Assemblies International.
After decades of abuse eventually he was committed in December 2010 to stand trial.
However, the arch manipulator had one more trick up his sleeve. He obtained two medical reports to say he was unfit to be tried for 23 sexual offences.
In February 2012, the trial was permanently stayed, two weeks before it was due to commence.
The Crown unsuccessfully opposed the stay application. The whole thing was a dreadful blow to Williams' victims, one of whom told 4 Corners:
"How can a judge make judgment in two-and-a-half hours of what's happened to victims for over 25 years? ... That's for me mud in my face and to any other victim."
Viewers were puzzled why 4 Corners was silent about the identity of the judge who ordered the permanent stay.
Investigations reveal that the ABC's legal advice was that the program should not publish the name of the judge because it would seem like he was being criticised or denigrated.
If might be helpful if we filled out some of the missing details.
The stay was ordered by Tony Garling, then of the NSW Dizzo Court.
The medical reports came from Dr John O'Callaghan, a geriatrician, and Dr Jenny Jin, a consultant rehabilitation specialist.
Both also gave sworn oral evidence.
What is disappointing for the victims is that the stay was not as a result of insufficient evidence, rather the doctors were convinced that William's health would further deteriorate if he were to go to trial.
Garling thought that it would be difficult for the trial of the old god botherer to be conducted fairly.
Maybe the McClellan royal commission should pick-up where the court dropped off.
Smooth talking Elf
OUR old mate The Elf, otherwise known as the Attorney General in and for the Northern Territory, has been featuring, again, in Top End news reports.
Buffalo Bruce was listening to his transistor tuned to the ABC when he heard a bulletin that John Elferink and one of his policy advisors had attended a bar advocacy course.
This is a special program for barristers and those applying to join the NT bar. The moderators for the Darwin event were Gorgeous George Hampel and Justice Ann Ainslie-Wallace from the Divorce Court.
The course was aimed at those who want to "boost their skills in court" and covered: systematic preparation, case analysis, performance preparation, communication skills, expert evidence and ethics.
The Elf, who had been a copper and later did law, was supervised at his pal Peter Maley's law firm while he did his graduate diploma in legal practice. Maley was later appointed an NT magistrate.
The AG said:
"I encourage my staff to offer and provide training and take that training up. If it's good for the goose then it must be good for the gander."
The average goose who attended the advocacy course had to stump up an enrolment fee of $3,000. But not this gander. The Elf got the taxpayer to foot the bill for him and his staffer.
As he told the ABC, "it's important for the attorney general to acquire the advocacy skills that the course covered".
This week The Elf discovered that the advocacy course was not of much assistance as he intervened in an argument between two adults at a Darwin football oval. For his troubles he was punched in the face.
Only hours earlier he had intervened in a fight at Smith Street Mall, where a restrained a citizen who had just hit a women in the mouth.
The attorney general said he would not recommend that everyone step in to stop fights in public, but he brings an experienced assessment to these things:
"I would rather suffer the consequences of a fat lip or black eye than a lifetime full of shame if I didn't step in and some real injury had resulted."
He was also involved in a scuffle in 2012 in the middle of a press conference about "one-punch" laws.
Calling on friendless bail man
NSW's new Bail Act, based on risk assessments of the accused, kicked in on May 20. By June 27 the government announced that it was to be reviewed.
The release on bail of two men accused of murder was too much to stomach. The Lawn Order genie was out of the bottle and attorney general Brad (Moral) Hazzard instructed former Labor AG John Hatzistergos to review the legislation, which had been working for a tiny bit more than a month.
Premier Baird announced:
"The Attorney General and I have become concerned that some recent bail decisions do not reflect the government's intention to put community safety front and centre. With this objective in mind and to provide further assurance to the community, we have asked former Attorney General John Hatzistergos to review the existing laws and consider potential enhancements."
This has to be completed before the August session of parliament.
Hatzistergos is just the man for the job.
In 2010 he introduced nasty, friendless amendments to the Bail Act that were so bad they were abandoned in the parliament.
They failed to address rising juvenile detention rates and sidestepped the contentious section 22A that prevented more than one bail application by most accused.
In the November 2007 debate on the Bail Amendment Bill, attorney general Hatzistergos boasted that the cumulative effect of various amendments was that NSW "now has the toughest bail laws in Australia".
See: NSW Law Report Commission 2012 bail report
He introduced legislation to remove the presumption in favour of bail for a number of offences, including: stalking, breaches of sex offender supervision orders, various categories of repeat offenders, association of people subject to control orders, and breaches of the Weapons Prohibition Act. He also extended the clauses for presumption against bail for riots and civil disturbances.
So there'll be no surprises when Hatzistergos issues his report.
Don Weatherburn, head of the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, and Nicholas Cowdery, former DPP, have both said that the new Bail Act needs to be given more time to work before it can be properly assessed.
Cowdery said:
"This is another instance of a trend in conservative governments - to respond to even isolated and anomalous events by 'reviewing' laws or legislating anew. Instead, they should allow the judicial processes to be applied to the law and then have it properly assessed by experts, not former politicians."
Meantime, Moral Hazzard is working on an exciting national scheme to award medals to prison officers.
Super-injunction gets bambanged
Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth's super-injunction in the VicSupremes, of behalf of the nabobs of DFAT, has gone down a treat.
Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has asked the Australian government to tell him what the hell is going on.
He was shocked that there were Indonesian leaders whose names were listed in the super-injunction, along with senior leaders and ministers from other countries in the region.
When Stephen Donaghue and James Forsaith sailed into the criminal proceedings against Securency executives, seeking wide orders to prevent publication of these names and thereby protect Australia's international relations, they could scarcely have thought that the orders have achieved precisely the opposite.
A nice own goal for DFAT.
Great issues of national security were also part of this overblown concoction with the affidavit from the department sealed and not to be opened without order of the court.
No one is meant to know the terms of the orders because that is part of the suppression. It must then be a process of guess work in determining whether the orders have been obeyed or not.
Of course, everyone vaguely interested has visited the Wikileaks website and read the whole thing there.
SBY has been looking at the Wikileaks site because that's how he discovered the banned information. He now wants an explanation from Australia and our diplomats in Jakarta have been grovelling ever since.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and the court have not yet realised that Australia is part of a vast pond of globalised information. A ban on publication of secrets in one spot, does not prevent them bobbing up in another.
Next week Freedom Boy's monumental free speech symposium gets underway, with a packed all-day program.
Not one journalist or media executive has been included in this gabfest. It's a concatenation of academics, bureaucrats, Soapy George Brandis, IPA types, and a sprinkling of ageing lawyers.
No scribbler to be seen, unless you count mistress of ceremonies, the Perfumed Steamroller, Yana Wendt.