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\u201cAs I say to people, I have lived five lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Gippsland resident\u2019s previous jobs include working for the AFL, state and federal governments and in the education and training sector. He says he knows Simon Patterson and the Patterson family and went ahead with their permission.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were comfortable about it. \u201d<\/p>\n
But a spokeswoman for the family said it hadn\u2019t granted any such permission.<\/p>\n
As for the book\u2019s accuracy, Le Grande said: \u201cIf I have made some mistakes, so be it. There\u2019s no financial reward in it. I will be lucky to make $20.\u201d<\/p>\n
One shopper was so incensed that they threatened to report the book to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. In response Amazon changed the book\u2019s listing from the \u201ctrue crime\u201d category to the \u201ccrime thrillers\u201d category.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not into defending myself,\u201d Le Grande continued. \u201cIf the postie stopped at every dog that was barking at him as he tried to deliver the mail, he would never deliver the mail.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, he did say the errors would be fixed when the book is republished next week.<\/p>\n
Rafa wins a vote <\/p>\n
Regular readers will recall that Residents 3000, the community lobby group for civic-minded folks who live in the city, imploded recently when secretary Merle Willis went to war with an extraordinary dispatch criticising president Rafael Camillo, who is also a City of Melbourne councillor.<\/p>\n
Camillo was elected on the ticket organised by loquacious pro-business candidate Gary Morgan (the Roy Morgan research executive who lost out in the mayoral race to Nick Reece).<\/p>\n
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Councillor Rafael Camillo has been re-elected president of community group Residents 3000.<\/p>\n
Willis urged Camillo to resign as the group, in her words, was \u201ctoo dominated, controlled and directed\u201d by Camillo for his own purposes as councillor.<\/p>\n
The councillor rose from his sickbed to tell us he was not going anywhere, thank you very much.<\/p>\n
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Then there was claim and counterclaim over whether Willis had resigned or not as secretary.<\/p>\n
Anyway, Residents 3000 held its annual general meeting last week at the Kelvin Club, and Camillo was victorious in the voting and re-elected president. Willis is no longer on the committee, continuing a pattern critics say has resulted in members opposed to Camillo leaving the group.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, Camillo was photographed clutching a bouquet of pink chrysanthemums, which symbolise joy, optimism and cheerfulness and (handily for a politician) longevity.<\/p>\n
He told CBD: \u201cNow that I\u2019ve been re-elected as president of Residents 3000, it\u2019s time to shake off the past and move forward with a bold new committee \u2013 energised, united, and ready to make our community better than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camillo ally Sussan Saunders was elected vice-president, Lyn Gazal secretary and Richard Grace treasurer. In all, there are 12 new committee members.<\/p>\n
Despite the critics insisting the group was turning into a vehicle for Camillo to further his own ends, Residents 3000 said in a statement that it \u201ccontinues to serve as a representative group for Melbourne\u2019s central city dwellers, advocating, connecting, and informing its community through vibrant citywide engagement and a commitment to supporting residents\u2019 needs at every level\u201d.<\/p>\n
Willis declined to comment.<\/p>\n
McWilliam v Curran<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been over a year since Bruce McWilliam, long-term consigliere to Seven\u2019s ageing emperor, Kerry Stokes, as well as being an infamous writer of inflammatory emails and collector of trophy homes, departed the network.<\/p>\n
McWilliam, a confidant to the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer, and a close friend of Malcolm Turnbull, departed during a tumultuous time for Seven, following former chief executive James Warburton out the door, right after the network was reeling from the whole \u201callegedly paying for Bruce Lehrmann\u2019s cocaine and sex workers\u201d scandal.<\/p>\n
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Nicky McWilliam pictured last year.Credit: James Brickwood<\/p>\n
With McWilliam now retired from the game but still moving prestige property, his wife, Nicky McWilliam, has been at the centre of a legal squabble involving the estate of her late father, a long-simmering family feud, and a $1.3 million fraud.<\/p>\n
Nicky McWilliam\u2019s father, property developer Tom Breuer, died in 2022, leaving behind a sizeable estate. Months before Breuer\u2019s death, his former executive assistant Cheree Curran was charged with dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by deception after the developer\u2019s children discovered $1.28 million had been paid out of his accounts to her.<\/p>\n
Nicky McWilliam entered the witness box in a trial that revealed years of tension and estrangement between Breuer\u2019s children. Curran\u2019s defence argued that Breuer was a \u201cvirile man\u201d who had given her the money to pay off women from his past.<\/p>\n
Last month, a jury found Curran guilty of five counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception. She is currently on bail while awaiting a sentencing hearing next month. Meanwhile, the legal wrangling is ongoing, with Nicky McWilliam and brother Antony Breuer, as executors of their father\u2019s estate, commencing civil proceedings against Curran in the NSW Supreme Court. A directions hearing was held last week.<\/p>\n
As they say in the news business, more to come.<\/p>\n
Getting in on the act<\/p>\n
Hours after pulling off a thrilling grand final heist, a few dusty members of the Brisbane Broncos\u2019 squad were surprised by the King of the North.<\/p>\n
By that we mean veteran MP Bob Katter, who gatecrashed the Broncos\u2019 arrival at Brisbane airport on Monday morning, because of course he did. Katter\u2019s Far North Queensland electorate of Kennedy may fall in deep Cowboys territory, but the Father of the House appeared thrilled by the Broncos\u2019 triumph, being snapped on the socials making small talk with victorious captain Adam Reynolds, still wearing his grand final jersey and nonchalantly holding the Provan-Summons Trophy.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s a Queenslander first, after all.<\/p>\n