A Buddle good time for Amy Ter Wisscha
SydCon Unleashed: The sister-in-law of former Comanchero bikie boss Mark Buddle is pregnant and living life large in Dubai while he prepares to fight drug charges in Australia.
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Amy Ter Wisscha, the sister-in-law of former Comanchero bikie boss Mark Buddle, is pregnant and living the high life in Dubai while he prepares to fight drug importation charges back in Australia.
Amy’s sister Mel Ter Wisscha, who has two children with the former Maroubra Bra boy, is keeping an unusually low profile.
Amy was believed to be handsomely paid by Buddle to look after the children when he was arrested in July at a luxury home in Northern Cyprus last year.
Soon after Mel was detained by Turkish authorities on visa irregularities and spent 38 days in a detention centre, before being released.
During that time, the children stayed with Amy in Dubai at The Palms, where Buddle and Mel lived before he left the city. Neither Mel nor Amy are involved in any criminal activity.
Amy, who is regularly seen in the company of Buddle’s Dubai-based lawyer Abide Gulel, appears to be making a pretty good living from her online clothing business Bella Rose.
She is currently residing at the exclusive Palms Jumeirah estate, where apartments cost around $A9 million to buy or as much as $1 million annually in rent.
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“People wonder how she’s affording to live the way she is,” a source said.
“But she seems to be doing pretty well.”
Mel reportedly split in 2021 from her long time partner Mark Buddle when he moved to northern Cyprus and married a local woman, Ozge Kavus, while she lived between Dubai and Turkey.
Where Mel and her two children are currently is not known
Buddle, 37, left Australia in 2016 and lived in various parts of the world before settling in Dubai for four years before relocating to Cyprus.
He was deported from northern Cyprus to Turkey on visa irregularities and was extradited back to Australia in August last year.
Buddle appeared in a Melbourne court soon after landing and was charged with allegedly being behind a 160kg importation of cocaine valued at $40m into Melbourne in May of 2021, while he was still living overseas.
A trial date is yet to be set and Buddle, who has not entered a plea or applied for bail, is currently being kept in segregation in jail in Victoria.
SECRET LOVE: LUCIA HAWLEY GOES PUBLIC
Rising star Lucia Hawley learnt from an early age to keep her private life private.
That’s why, despite having a boyfriend of three years, it was only when Confidential considered the niece of Hollywood superstar Nicole Kidman for our most eligible bachelorettes list that the 24-year-old disclosed her relationship status.
“We met when I was 21 and he was 22, and in a short period of time it feels like we have experienced a lot together — graduating uni, navigating the pandemic, starting new jobs,” the host of 7Bravo told this column of Jacob Elordi look-alike partner, Henry Poole.
“There is something to be said for being able to share such pivotal moments together, it makes you really feel like a team.”
In fact, Hawley, daughter of Antonia Kidman, and Poole are set to take their relationship to the next level.
“We are planning to move out together next year, it is very exciting,” Hawley said, telling Confidential how she met her boyfriend
“Our meeting story is very funny actually, we met on the dance floor at a friend’s 21st and Henry very smoothly asked if we had met before.
“His pick-up line seemingly worked though because we spent the whole night talking. and here we are 3½ years later.”
CAVALIER KARL IS PLAYING WITH FIRE
Amid warnings we’ll endure another horrific bushfire season, journalists across the industry are steeling themselves to head back to the fireground — but Karl Stefanovic doesn’t seem too fazed.
The Today Show host’s cavalier attitude to media bushfire safety was apparent on Wednesday, when he swanned into a Rural Fire Service training session more than half an hour late.
Journalists are required to complete the safety training to have access to the fire front alongside firefighters during bushfire season.
According to a pair of eyes in the room, throughout the session Stefanovic was seen giggling at intervals with other Nine staff, and appeared to pay little attention to a compulsory assessment questionnaire, getting a colleague to fill some of the answers out for him.
Let’s just hope he paid enough attention to not end up on the wrong side of a bushfire this summer.
IT’S NOT ALWAYS PEACHY
Aussie pop star Peach PRC has vowed to continue sharing the good, the bad and the ugly of life.
While other celebrities steer clear of sharing their personal life, the Josh singer regularly discusses her mental health struggles directly with her millions of fans on social media.
“Right now I’m just openly moving through change and adjustments, and that can be hard and confronting to do in front of a million eyes,” Peach PRC, whose real name is Sharlee Jade Curnow, told The Daily Telegraph.
“But, I was vulnerable when there was only 10 (eyes) so I think it’s important that I don’t now hide that vulnerability, and remind people that yes I can be a doll, and get creative with my artistic expression, but I can also hysterically sob about my social anxiety an hour later — and both are fine and both are me and both are my expression.”
It is this authenticity and the way she expresses herself through music and on social media that has made Peach PRC a pin-up here and abroad.
Her album, Manic Dream Pixie, topped the ARIA Chart earlier this year, and she has played festival gigs across the country and overseas.
Her increasing profile and relatability with fans has made Peach PRC an attractive proposition for brands. She is an ambassador for MCoBeauty and recently released a collaboration with the cosmetics brand.
“The good thing about feeling so much is that I’m always writing and I’ve always got something to say,” she said of sharing her experiences openly.
“So, expect an album full of every thought I’ve ever had, coming at some stage.
“For now I’m just enjoying the fun creative part of this crazy job and I can’t wait for the next festival, the next single, the next music video, bring it all on.”
NEWTOWN BAR-BOTTLESHOP OPENS AFTER THREE-YEAR FIGHT
Hospitality group CEO James Thorpe fought NSW Liquor and Gaming for close to be three years for the right to open a bottle shop and small bar venue in one, despite these venues existing in Victoria.
Spon is a hybrid small wine bar and bottle shop on King Street in Newtown, where patrons can try any one of the 17,000 bottles of wine and large format beers in the shop by the glass. It’s next to Thorpe’s award-winning restaurant and bar Odd Culture.
Venues like Spon are littered around Melbourne because in Victoria, a standard liquor licence allows you to sell alcohol. However in NSW, the only venue you can do that is either a bottle shop or a pub.
After years of fighting, the head of the Odd Culture Group was granted two different licencing applications which cohabitate in the one space. It means for his 20-seat bar there are 12 different liquor signs which establish the separate boundaries of the licence.
“It’s pretty crazy but it was the only way to make it happen,” Thorpe said.
“It’s convoluted and archaic but it’s Sydney.”
Thorpe said he was determined to fight for the new model after being inspired by lauded Paris venue Septime La Cave and also seeing how well these style of venues works in Melbourne.
“The other part is being told no for arcane reasons, I’m not into that. For example, each liquor licence has to have own telephone number or postal address for a 20 seat bar. But we worked through that,” he said.
The nature of the venue means the cost of the bottles compares more to bottle shop prices than restaurants, where often a glass is sold for the same price as a bottle at the liquor store.
Spon also serves snacks like charcuterie, cheese, salami from the Odd Culture kitchen designed to complement the drinks.
With their now being precedent for a hybrid model, Thorpe fully expects more operators to open similar type venues in the coming years.
He’s also calling for a review of the licencing laws, having previously called them the strictest in the world.
“The rigidity doesn’t make Sydney’s night-life safer, it makes it one dimensional,” he said.
The move comes after Thorpe’s Odd Culture was also granted the first 4am licence in NSW in 99 years and is set to open Pleasure Club later this year.
To celebrate the opening, Spon will be serving up $6 glasses of Pét-nat, orange, or chilled red wine for the rest of the month and September, as well as half price corkage.
SHARK SINKS HER TEETH INTO FASHION
Singer Amy Shark is happy with being labelled an unexpected fashionista.
She’s also OK with her sartorial style being described as effortless.
“I know what works for me and I very rarely will wear anything rather loud,” Shark told Confidential. “I just don’t like that.
“I feel like I’ve got a style, but I guess you are right, I go for an effortless kind of look.
“I would blend into the wall if I could, but I think being a musician that needs to be on stage and needs to look like I am spearheading a machine, I need to have a style.
“I feel like over the years I have found that and I am really comfortable with that now.”
Shark, 37, has undoubtedly lifted her fashion game over recent years.
She worked with celebrity stylist Dale McKie through the new season of Australian Idol, and is leading the campaign for fashion brand Unison, which has had a rebrand and relaunch from previous name, French Connection Australia.
“I am like every other girl, I like to look nice I just don’t like to be in the chair for too long,” Shark said.
“And I think the more makeup makes me actually look older and worse sometimes.
“There are just little things that I’ve learnt over the time that I didn’t think I cared about but as you get older I think you do.”
BIG BUCKS STOP HERE
Not all is well in the NSW Liberals.
Five months on from Dominic Perrottet’s election loss, Liberals have begun grumbling about his successor as Liberal leader Mark Speakman.
The criticism, levelled by Liberal Party members both inside and outside parliament has centred on Speakman’s general inability to score political hits on Premier Chris Minns.
Now Sydney Confidential can reveal a new sore point among Liberals on Macquarie St: The salary of Speakman’s long-serving chief of staff Cheryl Gwilliam.
Gwilliam, responsible for staffing in the leader’s office, is earning more than $240,000 per year. To put that in context, MPs get a base pay of $172,576.
Speakman’s office would not confirm her exact salary when asked, but confirmed that she is being paid equivalent to the “MS6” ministerial staffing band. That’s anywhere between $240,000 and $321,000 under the Minns regime.
Admittedly Gwilliam did take a big pay cut since the Coalition lost.
The Opposition gets a single yearly budget from which to fund its entire operation. That still hasn’t been finalised, but Liberals believe it will come in at about $1.2 million a year.
Speakman’s COS is taking home about 20 per cent of that.
Disgruntled Liberals argue that the Speakman would be better off using some of that money to pay for dirt-unit operatives, or to pay for campaigns.
A spokesman said Speakman’s chief of staff was being paid a salary which reflects her “vast experience as a former Director General/CEO of a number of state government agencies and as a chief of staff to federal and state cabinet ministers”.
The last time the Liberals were in Opposition, before their 2011 landslide win, the top-paid staffer in the Coalition was taking home $180,000.
That kind of pay would certainly not go as far in 2023, but murmurings from Liberals suggest it would be prudent for Speakman’s office to do some extra belt-tightening.
Despite the unrest, Speakman won’t be too worried: he has what is widely thought of as the worst job in politics. No-one else wants the gig. Yet.
JAILBREAK ENDED AT COP’S HOME
An alleged prison escapee got more than he bargained for when he knocked on the door of a southern Sydney home this week, only to be confronted by an off-duty cop.
Jason Neil Melbon is facing charges of escaping from custody, break and enter, carjacking and kidnapping over the alleged violent prison breakout of Long Bay jail.
Police allege Melbon, 43, used a chair to jump an internal fence before going on the run.
But sources told Confidential his prison break had been interrupted when he asked for help at the home of an off-duty female officer.
“He approached her covered in blood and prison greens and asked for a cab,” the source said. “Then he ran off when she said no, so she got in her car and followed him.
“She ended up arresting him off-duty!”
Melbon faced Sutherland Local Court on Wednesday where no application for bail was made and he was remanded back in custody.
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