The Sun Herald (Sydney, Australia)
August 24, 2008 Sunday
First Edition
Gathering momentum;
POLITICS
by Lisa Carty
Labor cannot get the trains to run on time. Would the Libs’ popular MP
Gladys Berejiklian do any better? asks Lisa Carty.
The rise and rise of Gladys Berejiklian could be the ultimate migrant
success story.
Once upon a time she was a little girl who spoke no English, eagerly
rolling up for her first day at kindergarten in traditionally Anglo
North Ryde.
Now, with two degrees and a successful banking career on her resume,
she is poised to become transport minister, in charge of a $5billion
budget and responsible for fixing our trains, buses and ferries.
The Opposition transport spokeswoman and member for Willoughby is a
rare politician, one who commands respect and even affection among
Government MPs and the press gallery.
Her accomplished performances at media conferences and in Parliament
are in stark contrast to her early school days at North Ryde Public
School, when she spoke only the Armenian of her parents.
Now 37, the woman with the most difficult name in State Parliament
learnt English by osmosis.
She was the last in her class to write a full sentence, an achievement
acknowledged when the teacher placed a banner on the back of a
student’s chair emblazoned with the words: "Sentence maker".
"I used to peer through the window into the classroom before school
began to see if I’d got one on my chair," Berejiklian recalls.
"When I got it I was so proud."
Berejiklian was the first of three children born to Krikor and Arsha,
who met in Australia in 1969.
They married in the only Orthodox Armenian church in NSW, in
Chatswood, now in the heart of her North Shore electorate. Krikor, now
76, and Arsha, now 69, were from families who fled Armenia because of
the genocide that claimed 1.5million lives in 1915.
As the Ottoman empire moved in on the small Christian country, which
sits next to Georgia and was once the smallest of the Soviet
republics, their families ran for their lives.
His family went to Syria; hers went to Palestine.
Krikor’s first job in Australia was as a welder on the second-highest
sail of the Opera House. Soon after their first daughter was born,
they spent a year in Gladstone where he worked in the steelworks.
On return to Sydney, they set up home at North Ryde, where Berejiklian
got her first real taste of politics.
She was in year 11, and student body president, when the Labor
government announced an unpopular plan to shut either her school –
North Ryde High – or Ryde High.
"I engaged in protest action, which I had never done before," she
says.
Ultimately, her school – renamed to give it a fresh start – was the
victor. It closed after the three Berejiklian sisters had finished
their high schooling, teaching the eldest one a very valuable lesson
about communities, government and activism.
The school battle focused her mind on how politics and government
impact upon people’s lives.
"I had kind of always been interested in politics and I used to say to
my teachers – as a joke – that I’d be an MP one day.
"A lot of them counselled me against it, or rather they urged me to
choose university subjects which would give me a solid grounding in
something else."
At Sydney University she did an arts degree majoring in politics and
history, followed by a diploma in international relations.
"Then I rang [Willoughby MP and attorney-general] Peter Collins and
his chief of staff and begged them to give me a job in the electorate
office, which they did. I worked there three days a week. I was so
excited. I thought I had a foot in the door, but everyone said, ‘Don’t
be silly, you can’t just rely on politics – you’ve got to have a solid
career somewhere else.’ "
Later, when Collins became treasurer, she worked in his ministerial
office, and after that she worked for the new Liberal senator Helen
Coonan, to get a taste of Federal Parliament.
At the same time she was president of the NSW branch of the Young
Liberals.
Still her friends and family urged her to broaden her experience.
With a master’s degree in commerce under her belt, she acquiesced,
becoming a senior manager in the Commonwealth Bank’s government and
industry affairs section.
It was when she was the bank’s national general manager for its youth
segment that Collins, by now a good friend and mentor, dropped a
bombshell.
He would announce that night, four years earlier than many expected,
that he would resign at the 2003 general election.
The timing was terrible. She was enjoying the bank and, just as her
backers had predicted, a stint in the "real world" was doing her good.
But politicians have to seize the day. It felt like now or never.
After a neck-and-neck tussle, she fought off determined local mayor
Pat Reilly. After almost two agonising weeks of counting, Berejiklian
won by just 144 votes.
At last year’s election, Cr Reilly stood again but didn’t land a glove
on her. Her margin increased to about 14percent – about 2percent
better than Collins’s.
Two years into her first term, Liberal leader John Brogden gave
Berejiklian her first frontbench responsibility – mental health.
It was a bold and insightful move from the leader who would later
resign in disgrace and attempt suicide after battling his own demons.
At the time, there was no such thing as a minister for mental health.
For Berejiklian, it was a chance to learn about something of which she
knew very little. She worked hard to demonstrate "to people that the
NSW Liberals were compassionate". "Why do you bother going into
politics if you don’t want to help those who are less fortunate than
you?"
Two months before last year’s election, the then-leader, Peter Debnam,
threw her a curve ball when he gave her the transport portfolio.
"I love it. There is so much material and it’s very challenging," she
says.
"It makes you appreciate the impact [that] lack of transport has on
peoples’ lives – I am interested in the social impacts as well as the
economic."
If, as seems likely, the Coalition wins government in 2011 she will
face a huge challenge.
"There has been such a missed opportunity in the last 10 years,
particularly in the last five years, and people have been
unnecessarily stuffed around because of bad public transport," she
says.
"I want to turn it around."