Gladys Berejiklian: “not everyone gets the chance to make a difference”
For NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, family comes first. Inspired by her migrant parents, the Premier owes her success to hard work and commitment. And, as she tells Genevieve Gannon, Gladys still catches the bus to work and has Saturday lunch with the fam
Political power is sometimes the most fickle partner. It can build bridges, dig tunnels, and change the lives of millions of people. And sometimes it means absolutely nothing.
Gladys Berejiklian, the recently appointed Premier of NSW, knows all about the joys and vagaries of power. She has steered her way through two NSW budgets, repairing what she describes as a “basket case” economy and putting it back on track to prosperity. She’s reformed the country’s biggest public transport system and managed to drag it kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
But, she admits, there is one thing that has caused her stress.
While the Baird government was working to rehouse refugees fleeing the deadliest conflict of the 21st century, Gladys was quietly getting on with her job, knowing members of her family were still caught up in it. The Liberal Party’s first female
Premier has relatives in Aleppo, the war-torn Syrian city whose name has become a synonym for human suffering. “It’s stressful and I can’t imagine what they’ve been through,” she says. “It’s horrendous. Especially because I saw the lifestyle they had when I went there.”
One uncle and many of Gladys’ cousins are still in the troubled region. About half the family has been forced to flee, but not all could. “Some of them are in the process of trying to settle in other counties,” she says,
“but obviously that takes time.” The Weekly has to ask, as a powerful political leader, what is it like to be unable to help?
“It’s an overwhelming sadness that people all over the world go through this,” Gladys says. “No matter who you are, you always have things in your personal life you’ve got to deal with. I don’t think I was different to anyone else.”
Gladys is sitting in her large corner office in Sydney’s Martin Place, recalling a trip to her father’s home country when she was in her twenties. It was the first time she had met her paternal aunts, uncle and cousins. She has the dark eyes and hair of her Armenian forebears but, she says, growing up in the diaspora’s Sydney heartland of North Ryde, she never resembled any of her relatives.
“Here in Australia I didn’t really look like anyone,” she says. “I look like my dad’s side of the family. It was quite shocking when I went to Aleppo and there were 50 people I look like.” She smiles as she remembers her father’s alarm after that first visit, when he discovered his siblings had filled his eldest daughter’s head with stories of his larrikin ways. “They gave away all of his secrets,” smiles Gladys. “I’m glad I did it at the time, because obviously you can’t go there now.”
Following her rise to the head of the NSW government on January 23, the private life of Gladys Berejiklian has become public. The media loves the story of the Premier who arrived for her first day of primary school unable to speak a word of English.
Born in 1970 at Manly Hospital to migrant newlyweds Krikor, a boilermaker, and Arsha, a nurse, Gladys spoke only Armenian until the age of five. She says her father, with whom she is very close, was “gutsy and brave” to come to Australia on his own. When she thinks of her family in Syria, she feels lucky and grateful.
“I’ve had enormous opportunities they haven’t had and won’t have because of what they’ve been through,” says Gladys. “It makes you want to work harder to really keep strong what we have here because it is unique.”
These circumstances may in part explain Gladys’ renowned appetite for hard work. When the outgoing Premier, Mike Baird, endorsed his deputy as his successor, he described her as just that. Hard-working
and loyal, Gladys would make an outstanding Premier, he said.
Her credentials are impeccable. Untarnished by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) hearings that unearthed scandal after scandal, she was first mentioned as a potential leader in 2014, when a $3000 bottle of Penfolds Grange proved to be the undoing of then Premier Barry O’Farrell.
As Treasurer, she swiftly put the state back in the black after the Liberal government inherited what she called “the economic basket case of the nation” in 2011.
A Girl Scout, volunteer and active community participant from a young age, Gladys was president of the NSW Young Liberals from 1996 to 1997 – their third female president – then spent five years as a senior executive at the Commonwealth Bank. But her civic-minded parents raised her to involve herself in the community, and a life of public service beckoned. In 2003, her mentor and former boss Peter Collins called Gladys to ask if she would consider running as the Liberal candidate in the seat of Willoughby, which he had held since 1981.
As a teenager Gladys had harboured a secret ambition to go into politics, and she laughs as she describes “harassing” Peter Collins to let her come and work for him. North Ryde has Sydney’s largest Armenian population, but Willoughby is its cultural centre. It seemed a natural fit.
But when the call finally came from Collins, it wasn’t the fait accompli she and others expected. The selfconfessed maths whiz loved her job in the banking sector. “I really had to think long and hard,” she says.
After taking several days to consider the proposal, the answer became clear. “I woke up one morning and thought, I love the bank but lots of people can do my job. Not everybody gets a chance to make a difference in politics and that tipped me over the edge.”
Now that she has ascended to the highest office in the state, Gladys is determined to remain grounded. Throughout her parliamentary career she has taken the bus to work, and she doesn’t intend to let being Premier get in the way of that.
“I find it relaxing and it’s more efficient in the morning,” she says. Besides, the electronic trill of the Opal card readers gives her personal satisfaction. As Transport Minister, she ushered in the smart-card system that operates across greater Sydney and environs’ network of trains, buses and ferries. “It gives me a great thrill when everyone’s beeping on the bus,” she says. Local residents are used to seeing their now-Premier on their morning commute, so there haven’t been any problems yet. Gladys hopes it stays that way. “I’m going to try to do what I can to stay as normal as possible,” she says.
This unassuming practicality is not limited to her mode of transport. At a photo shoot for The Weekly, Gladys turns down crimson Armani in favour of a pink Zara jacket that she had brought from home. There’s a brief conversation about whether The Weekly should mention her sense of style in the story, given some media outlets’ habit of losing interest in female leaders’ achievements when there’s an outfit choice to be dissected. A recent article dedicated several paragraphs to comparing Gladys’ clothes with Julie Bishop’s, something you would be unlikely to see if the subjects were Mike Baird and Malcolm Turnbull.
But Gladys gladly owns her love of fashion and doesn’t mind when newspapers report on her clothes. “As long as it doesn’t take away from the contribution you’re making and what’s important to you,” she says. “I enjoy shopping and looking good.”
The personal questions don’t stop at where she buys her skirts.
The day after she became Premier, Gladys threw down a challenge to a journalist who wanted to know how she would handle answering the sort of questions levelled at Julia Gillard about being unmarried. “Ask me one,” she said.
A seasoned politician, she says people have the right to know what makes their leaders tick, and she has always been very comfortable with who she is.
“Twenty years ago I never would have imagined life would turn out this way but I’ve just taken every opportunity that’s come my way,” she says. “I’ve never made a conscious decision to choose work over other considerations, it’s just the way it’s happened in my life and I’m very happy with where I am.”
In her electorate, and parliament, she goes by Gladys or Glad. This is in part due to her surname – a potential disadvantage that she turned into a positive. During the 2003 election, some people at Berejiklian campaign
HQ feared that voters would find the name too difficult or unfamiliar. It was not uncommon for Armenian migrants to change or shorten their names upon arrival in Australia. The ancestors of fellow prominent Armenian and politician Joe Hockey, for example, originally went by the name Hokeidonian. There was also the practical issue of length. “We had a bit of difficulty fitting it on the poster,” Gladys says.
In the end they went with Gladys in large letters and a smaller font for her surname. This had the effect, Gladys believes, of making her more approachable – a quality she names as one of her strengths as a politician.
The billboards worked. But the margin in 2003 was paper-thin. Gladys was elected by a mere 144 votes. The recounts lasted for 13 days. “My father was so stressed,” she says.
The whole family was heavily involved in the campaign. Her two sisters, Mary and Rita, roped in everyone they knew. The Berejiklians, Gladys says, are incredibly close.
In her inauguration speech, she thanked her sisters for being her strongest supporters and her parents for making her believe that the sky is the limit.
“Growing up in quite a humble, working-class environment, we felt that we had everything we needed and we could be anything we wanted,” Gladys said. “I certainly didn’t feel that anything held me back.”
In addition to her job as a nurse, Arsha Berejiklian was considered something of a community medic, and was constantly being called out by neighbours to change dressings.
Krikor Berejiklian had a talent for welding at heights, so after working on oil rigs in Gladstone, Queensland, he got a job on the Sydney Opera House and welded the second sail.
“As kids, every time we went over the Harbour Bridge we’d look for the second highest sail because that’s the sail my dad worked on,” Gladys says. “We’re very proud of that.”
Her parents’ demanding shift work meant that when she was old enough, Gladys would babysit her younger sisters. “I had the unofficial parenting role with them,” she says
Gladys’ youngest sister, Mary, is sometimes mistaken for her daughter, which Mary loves. Gladys laughs. “It’s not so good for me,” she says, adding: “I’ve always really enjoyed taking care of kids and kind of always been the baby-sitter.”
As the first female Liberal Premier, she pays homage to the women who have supported her, in both the public and private arena.
Howard Government Minister Helen Coonan was a mentor, and Gladys credits her mother for always encouraging her to speak up in class. “It was an early lesson for me. Don’t let anything get in your way. Be confident and go ahead and have a try,” she says.
Indeed it was another little girl who helped Gladys overcome that first obstacle when she arrived at school unable to speak English.
“Her English was slightly better than mine, so we helped each other,” Gladys says. “We started school on the same day and she’s still one of my best friends.”
When she entered parliament in 2003, she proudly pointed out she was elected without quotas. Now, 14 years later, she says she’s softened her stance that issue, and supports targets for women. “I do think you need to be proactive when promoting women,” Gladys tells The Weekly.
Though she was the first in her family to join a political party, public affairs and world affairs were always discussed around the dinner table. Gladys’ grandparents on both sides were orphaned in the 1915 Armenian genocide. In 2013 she became persona non grata in Azerbaijan after visiting a disputed territory with a delegation of colleagues from the NSW parliament. She shrugs, unperturbed that she’s been censured by a foreign government.
The family’s lively political conversations continue to this day when they gather for lunch in Sydney’s North Ryde every Saturday.
“We have an extended family gathering each week,” Gladys says. “My mother cooks the whole day and then you eat when you turn up.”
After Gladys was sworn in as Premier, the first thing Arsha wanted to know was, “Are you still coming over on Saturday afternoon?”
The answer, of course, was
“Yes, Mum.”