What does $15 million buy you in Melbourne’s prestige property market these days? Knockout views, a top location and … an empty shell?
A whole floor in the Eureka Tower has been listed for sale, and offers a blank canvas for its new owner to design their dream apartment.
This empty shell apartment is for sale for $15 million.Credit:RT Edgar
Melbourne’s wealthy Jreissati family once planned to fit out the shell and move in, but like many other people, have refused their plans in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Elias and Colleen Jreissati have been spending more time at their Levantine Hill winery in the Yarra Valley, said their agent, RT Edgar Albert Park’s Gerald Betts. Mr Jreissati is the group chairman and founder of developer Bensons Property Group.
They now expect to keep as their city base another apartment they own in Eureka Tower, a pad that is not only complete, but opulent. This was previously listed for sale with price hopes of $25 million, but Betts said it would likely be taken off the market.
Betts said the ideal buyer of the Southbank shell is someone who wants to take up a challenge and he has already had half a dozen inquiries.
“It’s someone who has got money and wants to add their own touch to how it is presented,” he said. “It’s really an opportunity for someone to fit it out to their taste.”
It offers panoramic views and eight secure car spaces, in a building designed by Fender Katsalidis Architects that has resort-style amenities such as a cinema, heated swimming pool, sauna, gym and private outdoor terrace.
When the family of a Commonwealth Games debutant realized they couldn’t make it to Birmingham, they brought Birmingham to them.
Mackay’s Claire Colwill only joined the Hockeyroos this year after years of representing Mackay and Queensland.
Through every major tournament, her 92-year-old granny has been there cheering from the sidelines.
But the long travel and the lingering threat of COVID meant Jill Loughnan stayed home on the Sunshine Coast, where her family has set up their own Games Village to cheer on Australia.
“Through Claire’s hockey career, my mum and I have been able to travel with her as she’s played for Queensland and that’s been a really special time for us,” Colwill’s mother, Sara, said.
Claire Colwill with her granny Jill Loughnan and mother Sara at her Hockeyroos debut.(Supplied: Sara Colwill)
“We were lucky to be there to see her debut for Australia in New Zealand.
“One of the things [Granny] has always enjoyed about coming on hockey trips is the company and being part of it.”
Sara said the family had been watching the Games live and the replays from the comfort of her mum’s living room.
“I’m sure there’ll be lots of cups of tea and Devonshire teas and all things British to create the Birmingham theme.”
‘I’ve got two goals in life’
Claire Colwill represented Mackay, Capricornia and Queensland as a junior.(Supplied: Sara Colwill)
From a young age, Claire knew she wanted to be an Australian hockey player.
“When she was about nine, we were on the grass fields learning to hit and she came up to me and said very clearly, ‘Mum, I’ve two goals in life — I’m going to be a Hockeyroo and I’m going to run against Usain Bolt’,” Sara said.
She said her 20-year-old daughter had always been very focused; the second-year university student is balancing international sport with her studies de ella.
“She’s had to do one of her exams online from the Netherlands while she was away just before the World Cup started.
“She’s just set up a really good timetable and mapped it all out… so she knows exactly what she’s got to do.”
Claire Colwill (centre front) claimed her first World Cup medal in May when the Hockeyroos took bronze.(Twitter: HockeyRoos)
Speaking to the ABC when she was first named in the Hockeyroos squad, Colwill said it was a dream come true.
“It’s something you dream of as a kid, and every training session, it builds towards this moment,” she said.
“Starting back in school hockey in Mackay… it all adds up to where I am today.”
Proud family of supporters
Colwill’s brother Tim has traveled from Ipswich to Birmingham.(Supplied: Sara Colwill)
While most of Colwill’s family will be at the proxy Games village on the Sunshine Coast, her older brother, Tim, is in Birmingham cheering from the sidelines.
Sara said her two children were close growing up and continued to have a strong bond.
“They might not say that, but they are,” she laughed.
“He’s actually got a T-shirt made up with a photo of Claire in her hockey uniform on the front, and on the back it’s got ‘Colwill #1 supporter’.
“Number one is also actually Claire’s playing number.”
While Birmingham was the first major tournament Sara and her mum would not be watching Claire from the sidelines for, she said she doubted that it would make her daughter nervous.
“She’s always been really independent and the group is so supportive. It’s just one big family.
“I think she’s just loving every minute of it and just wouldn’t want to be anywhere else… she just seems to be thriving.”
Colwill and the Hockeyroos will play for gold tonight after defeating India in a penalty shootout in the semi-finals.
Until the Games Jill Loughnan has been on the sidelines to watch her granddaughter.(Supplied: Sara Colwill)
Kylie Spelde is aware people might be sick of hearing about the search for her sister, Janine Vaughan, who vanished almost 21 years ago.
But for Ms Spelde and her brother Adam Vaughan, Janine’s disappearance is a part of their everyday lives.
The “bright, bubbly, vivacious” 31-year-old was last seen getting into a red car after a night out at a pub in the central west NSW town of Bathurst.
What happened next has been a mystery for more than two decades, and the subject of a podcast, dozens of media stories and soon a documentary.
Sometimes Ms Spelde gets recognized by strangers who have seen some of the coverage, who confuse her with Janine.
She said sometimes people saw her sister as a concept, not a real person.
“A lot of the missing people that are out there, they just get labeled as a missing person, and I think people need to start realizing that they are somebody’s loved one, someone’s daughter, someone’s mother, and sister,” Ms Spelde said.
Kylie Spelde and Adam Vaughan hope their sister will be found alive.(Supplied: Kylie Spelde)
She said people were often awkward and unsure how to ask about the investigation.
“It was ‘oh have you found your sister yet?’ like she was this lost dog,” Ms Spelde said.
“When it’s a missing person, it’s an ongoing discomfort that people don’t want to ask.”
She said people would as “oh how’s the case going?” instead of “how are you coping?”.
Mr Vaughan said he remembered Janine as his “big, big, big sister” due to the 12 year age gap between them.
“Because she’s gone missing, we don’t know how to react, because we talk about her everyday,” Mr Vaughan said.
“It’s like she’s still here, it’s like she was just in the door yesterday.”
He said meeting new people always required him to consider how he explained Janine.
He said it was hard to know what to say.
“Do I say oh my sister died? And then it would be ‘oh, poor you’,” he said.
“Or, I’ve got a missing sister, and then the whole conversation for the rest of the night is about my missing sister.”
Janine Vaughan’s siblings remember her as “bright, bubbly and vivacious.”(Supplied: Kylie Spelde)
While the siblings have hope Janine will be found alive, that is not always the case for others.
“On one hand you’ve got the people who talk to you as if she’s just dead, and then that’s it, so they’ve got over it and they’re more worried about you,” Mr Vaughan said.
“Then there’s other people that kind of forget that she’s not dead, that we don’t know that she’s dead and if she’s still missing, and they don’t really know how to talk about it, so they kind of forget about her and everything goes on to what we’re doing.”
A 2009 coronial investigation found Janine was suspected to be murdered by an unknown individual.
Her family commissioned a billboard in 2020 which stands on the highway through the center of Bathurst.
A billboard features Janine Vaughan and the two other missing people.(Supplied)
It also features the images and information about two other people last seen in the city: 15-year-old Jessica Small, who was abducted in 1997, and Andrew Russell, last seen in 2010.
As National Missing Person’s Week came to an end for 2022, and the attention moved away from the more than 2,500 individuals not seen for at least three months, Ms Spelde said it was the hope of finding out what happened to her sister that kept her going .
“My hope is that I find Janine before I die, before something happens to me,” she said.
“So that’s my drive, that’s where I’m at, I’m like ‘I’ve got to do this’.”
NSW Police have offered a $1 million reward for information to help solve Janine’s disappearance and suspected murder.
“I would love to take that money from the government and make sure somebody’s got it, and it would also shine hope in other missing people’s families, if ours is solved, it gives other families hope,” Mr Vaughan said.
Anyone with any information relating to missing person cases can contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
The US Secret Service has given the House Jan. 6 committee a listing of all personal cell phone numbers belonging to agents based in Washington, DC, for the period the panel is investigating, according to sources familiar with the matter — an unusual step amid heightened scrutiny of the agency’s cooperation with the congressional panel investigating last year’s insurrection and the role then-President Donald Trump played in it.
The committee can now determine which agents’ call records they may want to review and, if they decide to do so, could either request records from the agents directly or conceivably issue subpoenas to their cell phone providers, an official familiar with the situation explained.
The Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency, have faced criticism in recent weeks for wiping text messages belonging to agents on and around Jan. 6, 2021. Congressional Democrats have accused the Homeland Security inspector general of abandoning efforts to collect text and phone records from that day.
Seeking and obtaining information from personal devices from federal workers is a “highly unusual” step by the committee, according to Don Mihalek, a retired senior Secret Service agent, and could reflect a renewed effort by the agency to further demonstrate its cooperation with congressional investigators .
A Secret Service agent stands by after Marine One at Fort McNair in Washington, DC, July 10, 2022.
Joshua Roberts/Reuters, FILE
The Secret Service has faced serious criticism in recent weeks as committee testimony focused on Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, and what agents assigned to the White House did and saw that day.
At the same time, Mihalek said, the agency’s decision to hand personal device information over to the committee could present thorny legal challenges.
“If the agency turned over these private phone numbers, the only appropriate course for that would have been via a subpoena or court order,” said Mihalek, an ABC News contributor. “Absent that, handing them over could be problematic.”
A spokesperson for the Secret Service recently acknowledged that some phone data from January 2021 was lost as the result of a pre-planned data transfer, noting that the transfer was underway when the inspector general’s office made the request in February 2021.
ABC News reported Thursday that DHS is reviewing its electronic retention policies and would halt wiping political appointees’ phones until the review is complete.
The Secret Service and representatives of the Jan. 6 committee declined to comment.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky and Luke Barr contributed reporting.
Bailey also accused the company of sloppy bookkeeping, saying it was “evidently clear” it had failed to maintain adequate books and records as required by law.
A personal trainer, Istomin has worked with celebrities including Hugh Jackman, Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicole Kidman.
He also developed F45’s regimen of 45-minute high-intensity interval and circuit training classes based on the motto: “no mirrors, no microphones, no egos”.
Istomin did not respond to The Sun-Herald‘s questions. But he has spoken about the turmoil engulfing F45, the company he founded in 2013 with Rob Deutsch, but left in 2016. Istomin later set up his own fitness business, Reunion Training.
Shares in F45, which is backed by actor Mark Wahlberg, plunged on Wall Street in late July after the company slashed its expansion plans, cut jobs, and announced chief executive Adam Gilchrist was stepping down.
“I think they bit off more than they can chew,” Istomin said in response to the turmoil inside F45.
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The financial troubles engulfing Istomin’s gym business come as the United Workers Union, which represents health and fitness professionals, called for stronger regulation of labor hire licensing and the fitness industry.
UWU allied industries director Godfrey Moase said it was a violation of an employer’s obligations to ask staff to forego wages due to cashflow problems: “If you can’t afford to pay wages, then you can’t afford to be in business.”
Bailey told creditors he was investigating whether Reunion Training chief executive Simon Philis was a shadow director given his influence over the company affairs.
Philis last year told The Daily Mail he had lost 29 kilograms in 14 months following the company’s exercise and nutrition program.
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Bailey said he believed the company had been insolvent since its incorporation in February 2020, incurring continuing losses and owing more than half a million dollars in federal and state taxes.
Istomin may be liable for the company’s entire debts of $2.6 million if it is shown the company was insolvent since it was founded and if he was responsible. Philis might also be liable if he is shown to be a shadow director.
“It is my intention to shortly report the significant breaches identified within this report to ASIC,” Bailey said.
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Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren teammate is steering well clear of the ongoing chaos.
Lando Norris took to social media in the wake of the Formula 1’s silly season going into overdrive to let the world know, he isn’t available.
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On Friday it was reported Ricciardo’s seat at McLaren for the 2023 season would be taken by rising Australian prodigy Oscar Piastri.
The bombshell news means Ricciardo’s contract could be terminated one year early, which would potentially result in a monster payout for the West Australian.
F1 is on its mid-year break and the silly season went into overdrive this week when Piastri emphatically denied he would be filling the spare Alpine seat vacated by Fernando Alonso, who is joining Aston Martin.
But as the chaos unfolds at McLaren, Norris made it abundantly clear he wouldn’t be addressing any of the drama during the break.
Norris uploaded two images of him in a private jet, with this sneaky caption: “Thanks for your email. I will be away from the office until [next week] for [holiday] with no access to email. If your request is urgent, please contact [@mclaren]. Otherwise, I’ll get back to you as quickly as possible when I return on [@fai_aviation_group].”
The Formula 1 world wasn’t happy with Ricciardo’s reported sacking from McLaren, with many hoping the Aussie remains in the sport.
Ricciardo’s career has been on some what of a downward spiral since his days of outdriving Sebastian Vettel and regularly challenging Max Verstappen at Red Bull. But no one wants to see it end this way.
ESPN’s Nate Saunders reported four teams have sounded Ricciardo out recently to “see where his head is at” and slammed McLaren for its treatment of the Aussie.
“It reflects very poorly on Brown and McLaren how they have treated Ricciardo over the past six months,” Saunders wrote. “Ricciardo, the only McLaren driver to have won an F1 race since 2012, has been the first to admit his performances have not been up to the standards he set at Red Bull and Renault but it feels as though he has been made as a scapegoat to deflect away from deeper problems at the team.”
Despite the rapid turn of events this week Ricciardo’s future could take a long time to settle because McLaren will likely face a challenge from Alpine over its poaching of Piastri.
The West Australian could spend a year with McLaren’s IndyCar team to see out his deal, or could receive a pay out and join another team. That team could even be Alpine if Piastri is able to leave.
Who is Oscar Piastri?
Born in Melbourne, Piastri joined Alpine’s academy after clinching the Formula Renault Eurocup title in 2019, securing seven wins.
He carried the form into the Formula 3 series in 2020, winning the opening race on his debut and holding his nerve to claim the title by three points in one of the most closely fought championships ever.
The following year he was on the Formula 2 grid, where he clocked six wins to unequivocally announce his arrival on the world stage, becoming just the third rookie champion after Charles Leclerc (2017) and George Russell (2018). They are both now in F1.
Despite his rapid rise Piastri was overlooked for a drive in Formula One this season because of a lack of available seats, instead lurking on the sidelines at Alpine ready to replace either Esteban Ocon or Alonso if they were forced to miss a race.
He’s managed by fellow Aussie and nine-time F1 race winner Mark Webber. “Does he deserve to be in F1? Absolutely, we all know that,” Webber says. “It’s not a question of if, but when.”
The Piastri family say they are “petrol heads” with his father Chris telling The Sydney Morning Herald that “Oscar’s bedtime stories were mainly car books”.
He started racing remote-controlled cars aged six and by nine had graduated to piloting go-karts.
Residents of north-east of Victoria are keeping a close eye on predictions of a wet spring.
Key points:
The Bureau of Meteorology says a wetter August to October is likely for most of the country
A local caravan park owner says a quarter of the park was flooded on Saturday
Residents are warned to be vigilant to any weather changes
The Bureau of Meteorology recently said a wetter August to October was likely for most of the country, including more than double the normal chance of unusually high rainfall for most areas in the eastern-two thirds of the mainland.
North-east Victoria has already recorded good rainfall, hail, as well as a number of flood alerts and minor flood events just a week into August.
Walwa Riverside Caravan Park owner and manager Heidi Conway said the Murray River had peaked about five meters at the park late on Friday and into Saturday morning.
“The Murray River broke the bank and came into our park so we’ve probably got a quarter of the park underwater at the moment,” she said.
“Our cabins are elevated up so it hasn’t affected those at all, but it looks like it’s going down now.”
‘You can’t stop nature’
Ms Conway said her business was not feeling too many impacts from the latest flooding event given it was quiet over winter.
She said Saturday’s flooding was similar to the last flooding event they saw at the park in September 2021
She said the latest event had arrived earlier than usual.
Ms Conway says it’s not great to have to deal with flooding concerns.(Supplied: Heidi Conway)
“Normally we would look at maybe flooding towards September but due to seasonal changes we’ve copped it now as well,” she said.
“We have heard that we will have a wet year so that will impact the amount of people that we have in the park.
“After COVID and everything it’s not a great thing to happen but you can’t stop nature so we just have to look to all the things that we can do to deal with that.”
Ms Conway said despite the latest weather challenges she still expected to have a busy period leading up to, and during, Christmas.
Eyes on the sky
Victoria State Emergency Service north-east duty officer Dan Walton said the heaviest of the weekend’s rain had come and gone.
He said his organization was expecting steadier conditions early next week.
But he said it was important for community members to remain vigilant to any weather changes.
“This is not going to go away.” he said.
“We’re going to have the next several months of wet, warmer than average temperatures, more than average rainfall.
“This is going to continue until probably, at least, through November.”
“After a brief stay in the Alfred Hospital, Judith was admitted to Palliative Care on Friday 5 August, where she passed away peacefully that evening. Her death was a result of complications from a long-standing chronic lung disease,” Musicoast and Universal Music Australia said in a statement shared on the verified Facebook page for The Seekers.
“Our lives are changed forever losing our treasured lifelong friend and shining star. Her struggle was intense and heroic — never complaining of her destiny and fully accepting its conclusion. Her magnificent musical legacy Keith, Bruce and I are so blessed to share,” her former bandmates Keith Potger, Bruce Woodley and Athol Guy added in the post.
Durham helped open the door for Australian artists to achieve international fame. The Seekers, formed in 1962, were considered the first Australian pop band to achieve mainstream success in the United Kingdom and the United States.
The group’s hits included “Georgy Girl” and “A World of Our Own.”
Durham left The Seekers to pursue a solo career in 1968 and released several solo albums but continued to reunite and tour with the band in the decades after.
Several prominent Australians posted tributes Saturday.
“A national treasure and an Australian icon, Judith Durham gave voice to a new strand of our identity and helped blaze a trail for a new generation of Aussie artists,” wrote Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Twitter.
“Her kindness will be missed by many, the anthems she gave to our nation will never be forgotten.”
Australian comedian and actress Magda Szubanski shared her “deepest condolences to her loved ones” on Twitter.
“Her beautiful, crystalline voice was the naive but knowing siren song of my childhood,” wrote Szubanski.
Tanya Plibersek, Australian Minister for the Environment and Water, called Durham “a trailblazer and an icon in Australian music” on Twitter. “Her songs will live on forever.”
“When you’ve got … produce going up radically it’s pretty hard to make a decent living or make any profit,” he said.
But Crespin also said he would never consider changing the eggs on his menu. “It’s just being smart with your menu at the end. It’s always been a juggle [in] hospitality, but it’s what we do.”
Mr Brightside cafe owner Tait Crespin raised the price of egg dishes in July. Credit:Justin McManus
Owner of Latte Road cafe in Wollert, on Melbourne’s northern outskirts, Gagan Singh said his supplier had doubled the price of free-range eggs. He was forced to raise his prices for him two months ago and is now going to have to increase them again just to break even.
“My wrap was $5.50, now it’s gone up to $6.90–$7. But then I am going to put it up again,” he said.
Restaurant and Catering Association chief operating officer Belinda Clarke said eight out of 10 restaurants were passing some or all of the price rises to consumers, but some were reluctant.
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“We’re not seeing a huge shift in people changing their menus at this point,” Clarke said. “I do think that if it continues, then we will see, as we did with [the shortages of] lettuces and potatoes, a real change in the engineering of their breakfast menus.”
Clarke said short-term solutions might include using processed egg mixes in scrambled eggs – which she acknowledged would be unpopular with consumers – or reducing the availability of poached eggs.
Australian Food Service Advocacy Body board member Wes Lambert said costs would ultimately get passed to consumers and lead to continued inflation.
“As inflation increases, diners should expect that their meal going into summer is likely to get more expensive, and it’s not the restaurant or cafe’s fault,” Lambert said.
NSW Farmers Federation egg committee chair Brett Langfield said the cause of the egg shortage was that wholesale egg purchases by cafes and restaurants did not rebound in January and February after the COVID-19 lockdowns, and the industry interpreted the shift as permanent.
In his case, he had 680,000 birds and he reduced egg production by 20 per cent by killing one in five of the oldest hens.
Eggs were in oversupply after the latest lockdown and farmers reduced their capacity. Credit:Jessica Shapiro
“Eggs are a perishable product. They’ve got a use-by date on them, so we’ve got to manage that, and we didn’t know whether the change in purchasing habits from the consumer was going to be long term,” Langfield said.
“We took those eggs out of production and they can’t come back into production. It takes us about 4½ to five months to get a chick into production.”
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Managing director of industry body Australian Eggs, Rowan McMonnies, said overall demand for eggs had increased in the past 12 months.
“Retail volumes are only down slightly on this time last year, which was at an elevated position due to the COVID lockdowns,” McMonnies said.
“Cafes and restaurants appear to have also bounced back faster than anticipated as diners have made up for lost time.”
McMonnies said recent media commentary blaming the shortages on demand for free-range eggs was simplistic.
A Coles spokesperson said the limit of two cartons per customer had been in place for several weeks and applied in all states and territories.
Woolworths has not placed any restrictions on eggs, but a spokesperson said customers might notice reduced availability.
– with Rebecca Sadique
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Making headlines throughout the British MotoGP at Silverstone has been Ducati’s new ‘Stegosaurus-like’ aero package on the rear of its bikes.
Whether it’s the factory team, Pramac, Gresini or the Mooney VR46 outfit, Ducati has given all of their riders the chance to test the new aero package.
And while Enea Bastianini claimed it was helping him under braking following Friday practice, Miller is unconvinced after stating he feels ‘no benefit’.
Miller said: “I don’t know about benefit. It’s definitely not the easiest thing on the eye but they seem to be happy with it. I mean, I’m the donkey that sits on the bike.
“In my honest opinion I can’t feel anything. Except I just have to watch it with my leg when I put my leg over the bike. I can’t feel anything while riding. We need to analyze it more obviously, but for the moment nothing.”
When asked if he wanted to test the new wings after they first appeared on Bastianini’s Gresini Ducati and Jorge Martin’s Pramac machine, Miller stated: “They [just] gave it to me.”
While it might not be making a difference to the feeling he has aboard his GP-22 machine, Miller is just glad to be receiving parts and not being ‘locked out’ of data, something that has happened before when riders have agreed to join another team following the current season.
“At the end of the day they were straight up with me,” said Miller when talking about Ducati providing him with the same treatment as all its other riders. “Once I told them [I was leaving] we had this discussion and as you say, it’s very unusual for a factory to give a rider updates especially when the rider is leaving.
“But they’ve been 100% honest with me throughout the whole lot and also you see what they do with all the bikes they have on the grid.
“They give them the maximum that they can. It’s in Ducati’s DNA and it’s a massive thing from Gigi [Dall’Igna] and they are really pushing for that.
“On that side of things I greatly appreciate it because there is nothing worse than not getting updates or being locked out of data etc. It’s nice to have that, for sure.”
Zarco ready for Silverstone ‘present’ – can he take his first MotoGP win?
Starting alongside Miller on the front row for Sunday’s Grand Prix will be Johann Zarco after the French rider secured pole with a new lap record.
Nearly a tenth clear of Maverick Vinales, Zarco’s main challengers for victory are potentially all on the second row as Fabio Quartararo will start directly ahead of Francesco Bagnaia and Aleix Espargaro.
Still bidding for his first win in MotoGP, Zarco said ‘why not’ at the prospect of taking home the spoils at Silverstone.
“From Friday I’ve been quite fast and I was able to build a good step from Friday to Saturday. It means that I have more chances than usual to think about the victory.” added the two-time Moto2 champion.
“The pole position was a good confirmation and also the pace in FP4 was quite good. Why not hope for this victory.
“I will not fully focus on it [to avoid] making any mistakes. Let’s see how the others will be in the race. I hope I will get this advantage with the hard rear and get this nice present at the end.”
