When Celebrity Support Pays

THE AY FAMILY, Kurdish refugees from Turkey, were detained for 13 months in 2002 as the British government attempted to return them to Germany, where they had first made a claim for asylum.

At the time the youngest, Medya, was just seven when the family were arrested and locked up in 2002, Dilovan was 11, Newroz was 12 and Beriwan was 13.

But the Ay family had some high profile backers who pledged to support them in the community including actor Colin Firth, Harry Potter author J.K.Rowling and Australia's Oscar winning writer Tom Keneally, author of Schindler's Ark which was made into the film Schindler's List by Steven Spielberg,  the Devils Playground the film based on Keneally's life story, and The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith.

JK Rowling

Keneally, who trained to be a Catholic priest has been a long time supporter of asylum seekers both in Australia and abroad and now after a ten year campaign the four Ay children have settled out of court last week for a compensation claim rumoured to be in the high six figures.

Since their election, the Coalition government of David Cameron has pledged to end the practice of locking up child refugees.

In 2003 Keneally who lives on Sydney's Northern beaches said : "In a liberal democracy you can only maintain a policy of locking children up behind barbed wire by spreading lies and demonising the dispossessed of the earth. In the future, these children will tell their stories. There's bound to be literature that comes out of it, and people will gasp and say, 'How did that policy ever get through?'

and so it came to pass..

So the tSS is 4 weeks out but as it was revealed just 5 minutes ago-our spooky prediction 3 months ago has come true. NSW has it's first female premier in the capable form of  Las Vegas born, American accented and former Colorado Teamster's Union organiser, 40 year old Kristina Keneally.

Keneally is the niece of Oscar winning author Tom Keneally who penned the bestseller Shindler's Ark which was turned into a blockbuster film by Steven Speilberg. Kristina was elected in a party room spill after premier Nathan Rees threw in the towel 30 minutes ago.
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# with the elevation of Tony Abbott 2  days ago to Federal Opposition Leader of the Liberal Party, tSS has slaughtered it's pet chook and studied the entrails. Ignoring our advice to stick with our pal Malcolm Turnbull and running with an Abbott/Bishop ticket ( Julie Bishop as deputy leader) the Liberals look likely to lose another 20 seats in next year's general election.
           Should PM Kevin Rudd pull a double dissolution with the full Senate up for grabs-the Greens will pick up an extra 2 seats giving it the balance of power in the upper house. 
(If only former treasurer Peter Costello had still been around-who could resist an Abbott & Costello team ?)
Prove me wrong.
(ps: we'll still be going to Mal's Christmas bash. We'll be bold here with another claim..a defection is in the air)