Back In The Big Smoke

Duncan & Sally

They are some of the Shuttle's fave people :
British born banker Duncan Mount and his glamorous wife ex-model  Sally. They hosted sensational parties at their Elizabeth Bay Spanish style, harbourside mansion Boomerang.

Once they let out Boomerang to Tom Cruise so he could film Mission Impossible 2 there. During the day we would see Duncan tooling about town in his black Rolls convertible, dropping the kids off at school or perhaps the video hire shop in Kings Cross.

Cedar Springs

Then they upped stakes and departed for Byron Bay and principally Paul Hogan's hinterland mansion Cedar Springs at Possum Creek which they bought off Hoges for $8.1M (after selling Boomerang for a whopping $29M). Hoges had built the 27 room mansion in 1990 for his marriage to Linda Kozkowski.

Boomerang

Paul & Linda

Duncan who made a fortune selling bicycles to the masses in Hong Kong parceled up Hoges extensive acres and sold them off for $2M a plot.
 Last week he unloaded Possum Creek for a reputed $6.5M. The last we saw of the Mounts they were back in Sydney living in a rented Bellevue Hill penthouse and contemplating the future. Hopefully they'll hit the scene again soon.  We need them !.
                                                    

Hick's Prosecution Dropped

Hicks at Boomerang

 NEWS THAT the Federal government has dropped the case against David Hicks over his book Guantanamo, My Journey under proceeds of crime legislation complicates the claims used against him the US Military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay where the incarcerated Hicks entered an Alford plea, a US technical device where the accused admits the prosecution has enough evidence to find him guilty. In that way, the evidence is never tested in court.

In return Hicks was immediately repatriated to Australia after years of being held in jail on no charge.

NSW Governor Marie Bashi

Hicks was castigated by then PM John Howard   and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer as being the "worst of the worst", an ironic charge from 2 politicians who failed to notice under their watch the Australian Wheat Board was illegally bribing Saddam Hussein with over $200M.
The Shuttle met David Hicks and his wife at a cocktail party in 2010 at the Sydney harbourside mansion Boomerang (where Mission Impossible 2 was filmed) and it was difficult to reconcile the dastardly image painted by politicians with the polite young man. NSW Governor Marie Bashir also chatted to the couple in a friendly manner.

An opinion writer of the right leaning IPA 'think tank' who contributes to the ABC's The Drum also attacked attendees of the 2011 Sydney Writers Festival  for listening attentively to Hicks tale about his treatment at Gitmo where he says he was drugged and tortured. In this piece published in the SMH, "Audience on their feet for a fraud"  he calls them 'incredulous fools".
 The Shuttle tangled with that writer via email but thankfully he has now gone to the bosom of Opposition leader Tony Abbott as an adviser. That's the same Abbott who was also a Minster in Howard's government where he also apparently over-looked a stream of emails indicating that against UN sanctions, the AWB was sending hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks to the Saddam regime. Despite the mass of evidence produced during an investigation and Downer's evidence he couldn't 'recall' seeing memos about the scandal, no-one was every charged (or required to enter an Alford plea).
Incredulous fools indeed!.