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In 2001, teenager Sef Gonzales murdered his parents and sister at their North Ryde home, prompting new disclosure laws for real estate agents after the house was later sold to an unsuspecting couple from Taiwan.
A waterfront home in Bundeena, currently on the market, doesn’t have quite the macabre history. But the agents must have dithered over whether there were certain “material facts” about the property that potential buyers should know.
The five-bedroom clifftop residence, which boasts “breathtaking views over the Hacking River and Cronulla”, came onto the market in late September, which just happened to coincide with the finalisation of legal action against its owners.
The property is one of the places where the late cult leader Ken Dyers was alleged to have sexually abused young girls. It is owned by three of the group’s followers – Bernard Price, Wendy Tinkler and Amanda Hamilton.
Dyers’ widow Jan Hamilton also has a caveat on the title that gives her a life interest in the property. The name of the cult – Kenja – is an amalgamation of the couple’s names.
Refugees from Kenja, which describes itself as a “personal communication training organisation” and not a cult, raised their collective eyebrows to see the property hit the market just days after a complaint brought by one of Dyers’ accusers was confidentially settled. A 33-year-old woman, given the court pseudonym XC, had sued 11 Kenja members, including the owners of the Bundeena property for allegedly enabling Dyers to sexually abuse her in the early 2000s.
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Their methods allegedly involved wigs, disguises, secret passageways and burner phones, which is less outlandish than it sounds if you are familiar with Kenja’s kooky antics. (A court found in 2007 that Hamilton had staged a fake audition, wearing a wig and moustache and affecting a Russian accent, to intimidate another one of Dyers’ victims.) Some of the abuse was alleged to have occurred at the Bundeena residence.
However, as the matter was settled confidentially, the allegations could not be tested in court, and Hamilton and the other defendants have denied any wrongdoing. In fact, they claimed to be happy with the outcome of the settlement and posted a new treatise in support of Dyers on their website that featured glowing testimonials from those who knew him – anonymously. “Ken Dyers was a man of integrity and strong principles,” writes Kym, LLB, Grad.Dip, BA. “He was the Grandfather we all should have had.”
Civilised departure
When he died in 2014, billionaire health care magnate Paul Ramsay probably didn’t realise he’d kick off a culture war.
The Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation was launched three years later, thanks to a bequest from his estate with the goal of establishing liberal arts programs at universities around the country.
But it drew immediate suspicion from some academics and students, worried about a conservative Trojan horse infiltrating campuses. Those suspicions were furnished by the fact that some of the centre’s supporters almost definitely viewed the centre as an opportunity to halt the long march of woke cultural Marxism through Australia’s humanities departments.
After plenty of angry column inches that followed the Australian National University’s decision to can a deal with the Ramsay Centre, the culture war circus moved on. The centre has Western civilisation degrees at the University of Queensland, the University of Wollongong, and the Australian Catholic University.
Inaugural chair John Howard was replaced by billionaire barrister Allan Myers KC last year. Tony Abbott, arguably the brains behind the centre, is on the board. As is trade unionist Joe De Bruyn, whose anti-abortion screed led to a mass walkout at an ACU graduation ceremony last year.
There has, however, been a recent departure from the board. Liberal frontbencher Julian Leeser, who’d been close to the late Ramsay and involved with the centre from its inception, has quit.
Leeser told us he’d recently been appointed opposition education spokesman, and that he had departed the board to avoid any perceived conflict of interest.
“I’m still fully supportive of the Ramsay Centre and all the wonderful work it does educating young Australians,” he said.
Teal to real estate
At the last election, Leeser very nearly lost his once safely Liberal upper north shore seat of Berowra to Labor.
Turns out the Climate 200-backed teal independent challenge from local business-owner Tina Brown failed to amount to much. That’s despite Brown getting a bit of help from the seat’s former MP, Howard-era minister and Liberal elder statesman Philip Ruddock, who, as CBD reported in March, filmed a video with her in his own front yard.
Aside from a falling out between Ruddock and Leeser, the former Liberal state president and the wannabe teal were united by a desire to save Hornsby’s bushland heritage from rapacious development.
It looks like Brown has moved on, announcing a new gig last week as a sales associate at Stone Real Estate in Hornsby.
All that anti-developer rhetoric, it seems, is in the past.
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