The Daily Telegraph (Australia)
September 2, 2018 Sunday
The first dad of NSW
by MIRANDA WOOD, SENIOR WRITER; EXCLUSIVE
Father's Day 2018: Premier Gladys Berejiklian's special bond with dad
KRIKOR Berejiklian takes his role as First Dad of NSW very seriously. The 86-year-old was watching the dismantling of Tent City at Martin Place on TV when he decided to head to the homeless camp and provide his eldest daughter with a first-hand -report.
"If there's something on the news, like anywhere there's a bit of a -problem, he'll actually catch the bus and go and check it out and ring me," NSW Premier Gladys Berejik-lian said.
"My dad loves catching public transport, especially when I was Transport Minister.
"Even now he'll ring me and he'll go 'Glad, I'm in Gosford" and I say 'What are you doing in Gosford'.
"He goes 'I just caught the train up here and the Opal machine is not working and you're losing a lot of money so you better get it fixed'." During her 15 years in public life, the doting dad of three daughters – Gladys, Rita and Mary – has learnt not to take political attacks on Ms Berejiklian personally.
The Premier has also trained her father and 79-year-old mother Arsha to follow one simple rule.
"Unless they hear from me, it's not true," Ms Berejiklian, 47, said. "Even on the day I was becoming Premier, all their friends were ringing and saying 'congratulations' and my mother said 'I'm sorry, we can't confirm that until Gladys rings us'.
"So my sisters rang me and said 'Can you please ring Mum and Dad because everyone is congratulating them and you haven't told them'." When she did finally tell them, Ms Berejiklian said her father was "trying to be cool about it".
"He pretended like it was no shock," she said.
"He was obviously proud but still had that level of concern as well – they do worry about me." Her parents, who will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary next year, have a drawer at their home, full of scrapbooks on Ms Berejiklian's rise to the top job in NSW.
The couple were married in the late 1960s after they migrated separately to Australia.
More than 40 of the Premier's relatives were victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide, leaving her four grandparents orphaned.
Born in Aleppo, Syria, Mr Berejiklian and his wife, who was from Jerusalem, spoke Armenian at home and when the Premier started school, she couldn't understand English.
Ms Berejiklian said her dad "settled down later in life because he kind of did his bucket list before he got married. He wanted to see Pele play in Brazil, so he spent six months living in Brazil, and then he wanted to chase Bridget Bardot in France, so he went to Paris." During The Sunday Telegraph's photo shoot with the Premier to mark Father's Day, Mr Berejiklian beamed with pride.
"First of all I am proud that I am with my daughter right now walking in front of the Opera House," he said. "I am particularly proud to be with her now because I worked on the Opera House as a boilermaker and welder a long, long time ago, just a few years before it was completed." Ms Berejiklian later said her -father told her: "Glad, this is one of the happiest days of my life." The father and daughter still converse in Armenian and, over the years, Ms Berejiklian said their relationship has "deepened".
"It's more a friendship than anything else, and a respect," she said. "During our teenage years, he was strict but, mind you, he needed to be stricter with my sisters than with me – I didn't break any rules." The Premier said she regularly talks to her father and he has recently -started sending her text messages – via his wife.
And every Saturday, she schedules time to visit her -parents. "I feel guilty," she said. "I spend once a week with him.
"He's been timing it lately, saying 'Glad, you're only staying for 45 minutes today'." Today she plans to spend a little longer with him at her uncle's house, fulfilling Mr -Berejiklian's Father's Day wish "to be with my family and spend time with my relatives".
Ms Berejiklian said she and her sisters were "lucky" their parents were still alive and active in the -community.
"We feel blessed to have them -because not everybody has parents living to that age," she said.
"No matter what happens in life, my Dad has always had a really -positive attitude and I think that's rubbed off a bit on me because he's always very can-do and no matter what the situation is, he'll always find a silver lining."HAPPY FATHER'S DAY