Book Review: So Greek

Confessions of a Conservative Leftie

Written by Nikki Savva

Published by Scribe Publications

Reviewed by Dan O’Gorman SC

This publication details the life of a migrant woman, with particular focus on her time as a political correspondent in the Canberra Press Gallery for more than twenty years and then as a media adviser to Treasurer Costello and the Cabinet Policy Unit of the Prime Minister Howard.

The author was born in a poor, remote village in Cyprus and was the product of an arranged marriage.  After migrating to Australia as a child, she grew up in working class Melbourne.  She divulges some aspects of her private life, including the serious illness suffered by a sister.

The author rose through the ranks of Australian political journalism, twice being the political correspondent on “The Australian”, and she was also the chief of the Canberra Bureaus of both “The Herald Sun” and “The Age”.  When her sister was struck by illness, the author sought a career change which resulted in her becoming Treasurer Costello’s press secretary for six years and then an adviser in Prime Minister Howard’s office for three years.  The book’s discussion of three decades of Australian politics is well informed by the author’s extensive and varied experience both behind the scenes and in the media.

The author offers some seasoned insights into conservative politics in Australia.  At one point while working in the Canberra Press Gallery, she had only three “friends” in politics, all senior left or centre-left Ministers in the Hawke Labor Government.  However, she later concluded that good people are in different places and that Labor had lost its right to moralise about righteous behaviour, either economic or social.  The person with whom she was later “friendliest” (nothing improper implied) in Parliament House was Treasurer Costello.  This, along with her sister’s illness, saw her handling the media for the Treasurer, an unusual career move because only a small number of senior journalists left the Canberra Press Gallery to work for the conservatives, and fewer still were ever welcomed back.

Particularly interesting is the author’s inside account of how the Government introduced the GST, the biggest tax reform in Australia in decades. She also observed Treasurer Costello implement a continuing program of corporate-law reform, the strengthening of finance-sector governance and the overhaul of business taxation.

Savva’s job as a “minder” for Costello for some six years involved her trying to “reshape Costello a bit” in both presentation and appearance.  She saw her press secretary’s role of satisfying both the media and her boss as being like “juggling a tiger and a python”. She observed Costello’s “reluctance to strike”, a characteristic she believed manifested itself at critical moments and would eventually smother his political career.  She further observed that Howard would not resign as Prime Minister unless he was forced, cabinet ministers could neither bring themselves to force him out nor bring themselves to beg Costello to take it, and Costello would not initiate a direct strike.  She states that Howard doubted Costello’s maturity and application, while Costello thought that Howard was “past it”.  She further opines that at one point after she had left the Treasurer’s staff, she believed the latter’s position had become so untenable that the honourable thing to do would have been to resign and go to the backbench, thereby showing some “ticker” and, with clever positioning, would have paid off for him and perhaps the government.

In her role in the Cabinet Policy Unit attached to the Prime Minister’s Office, the author went from writing columns ridiculing Prime Minister Howard to writing columns for him.

The relationship between Costello and Howard is not immune from the author’s frank writing style.  For example, she indicates that a constant source of irritation was Howard’s habit of phoning his advisers seeking information on what was in the budget, only to be told that they could not get it and that the Prime Minister would have to ring the Costello himself to ask for it. 

She is also, at times, very frank about her own mistakes as a journalist and those of some of our senior politicians.  However, she clearly became an advocate for the Howard Government, often referring to that government as “we”.  She also developed a great disregard for the Labor Party – for example, after dealing with the story relating to Rudd attending a “strip joint” in New York, she suggests, “Have another spoonful of earwax…”!

This book gives a valuable insight into the reporting of political events from the Canberra Press Gallery.  It has rightfully, in my opinion, been referred to by Laurie Oakes, Chief Political Editor of the Nine Network, as, “a riveting insider’s account of how politicians, minders, and journalists really operate”.  It should be read by anyone with an interest in Australian politics in the last 30 years.

Dan O’Gorman SC