Mary Kostakidis
Encyclopedia
Mary Kostakidis is the former weeknight SBS World News Australia presenter.
Mary Kostakidis was the first woman appointed to present a national prime time news bulletin in Australia.
She was member of the management team that set up and developed SBS Television in 1980 and went on to present its flagship World News
for 20 years, resigning in 2007.
Her board and committee appointments during nearly 3 decades at SBS and subsequently reflect a strong commitment to social justice and interest in the arts.
She is currently a member of the Fred Hollows Foundation Board, the Sydney Theatre
Board, the National Library of Australia
Council, the ResMed Foundation Board, Chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors(NSW).
The Sydney Peace Foundation is a University of Sydney
Foundation and its major Partner in Peace is the City of Sydney
. Annually it awards Australia's only international prize for peace, the Sydney Peace Prize
. Past recipients include Muhammad Yunus
, Xanana Gusmão
, Mary Robinson
, Hanan Ashrawi
, Arundhati Roy
, Hans Blix
, Irene Khan
and Patrick Dodson
.
In 2009 Kostakidis served on the National Human Rights Consultation Committee chaired by Frank Brennan. The Committee inquired into the adequacy of the protection and promotion of human rights
in Australia, holding consultations in metropolitan, rural and remote areas across the country and receiving over 35,000 written submissions. They recommended a raft of measures, the most contentious of which was a Human Rights Act
. Human rights education was the measure that had the greatest support of those that took part in the consultation, but the overwhemling majority supported human rights legislation. The four member Committee also included Mick Palmer
and Tammy Williams
.
From 1997 till 2003 she served on the Advertising Standards Board; in 1993 she was appointed by then Prime Minister Paul Keating
to Republican Advisory Committee chaired by Malcolm Turbull; in the early nineties she also served on the Council for the Order of Australia and in 1992 was a founding member of the James Joyce
Foundation Board along with Ed Campion and Don Anderson. She has also been an active member of the Kazantzaki society.
Kostakidis has also served as an Ambassador for Beyond Blue and was also a member of the Drug and Alcohol Council, the Breast Cancer Council Advisory Committee and the Constitutional Centenary Foundation.
, Greece
and migrated to Australia
with her family two years later. Kostakidis attended Fort Street Girls' High School
, and the University of Sydney
, where she studied Modern Greek
, Philosophy
, French
, German
and Italian
. She was also a founding member and first President of the University's Greek Society. She went on to complete a Diploma of Education
in order to prepare for a career as a teacher. Kostakidis won a post-graduate scholarship to study at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
in Greece.
Before joining SBS, Kostakidis worked as a tutor at the University of Sydney
, as a research officer for the Departments of Health and Youth and Community Services in New South Wales and as a court interpreter and a translations editor. She once worked for ABC
Radio news. During the assignment as an interpreter on the socalled Greek Conspiracy Case in the late 1970s, she organised a conversion course for Greek interpreters at the NSW Ethnic Affairs Commission in conjunction with Sydney University Modern Greek lecturer Dr Alfred Vincent, to facilitate a conversion from the formal katharevousa to demotic or vernacular Greek so that the defendants in the case would be able to understand the language being used.
in 1986 with Rebekah Elmaloglou
. She has also appeared in the movies Jindabyne
and Look Both Ways
as a newsreader.
Unit. She became Director of Programme Preparation where she was involved in developing policies of censorship
and classification
.
She previously co-hosted the main SBS World News
at weekdays with Stan Grant.
.
On 5 October 2007 Kostakidis lodged a statement of claim in the Federal Court of Australia
, alleging a breach of contract and contravention of the Trade Practices Act 1975 on the part of SBS, citing alleged bullying by fellow presenter Stan Grant. Kostakidis secured the services of a prominent Melbourne lawyer, Julian Burnside
QC
and was expected to argue that her contract stated she would be the primary presenter of the programme, and that she would be able to exercise some editorial control.
The court action was later discontinued, and on 23 November 2007 Kostakidis reportedly reached an "amicable settlement" with SBS. The financial details of the settlement have not been disclosed.
Honours committee, the Sydney Olympic Cultural Organising Committee and was a member of the Breast Cancer Council Advisory Committee. She was appointed as a member to the Constitutional Centenary Foundation and to the Republic Advisory Committee. In August 1997 she was appointed to the Advertising Standards Board.
Mary Kostakidis was the first woman appointed to present a national prime time news bulletin in Australia.
She was member of the management team that set up and developed SBS Television in 1980 and went on to present its flagship World News
SBS World News
World News Australia is the news service of the Special Broadcasting Service. Its flagship nightly bulletin is broadcast at on SBS One with additional weeknight 'late' bulletins at on SBS One...
for 20 years, resigning in 2007.
Her board and committee appointments during nearly 3 decades at SBS and subsequently reflect a strong commitment to social justice and interest in the arts.
She is currently a member of the Fred Hollows Foundation Board, the Sydney Theatre
Sydney Theatre
Sydney Theatre is a theatre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Sydney Theatre seats up to 896 people and is part of the Sydney Theatre Company....
Board, the National Library of Australia
National Library of Australia
The National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...
Council, the ResMed Foundation Board, Chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors(NSW).
The Sydney Peace Foundation is a University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
Foundation and its major Partner in Peace is the City of Sydney
City of Sydney
The City of Sydney is the Local Government Area covering the Sydney central business district and surrounding inner city suburbs of the greater metropolitan area of Sydney, Australia...
. Annually it awards Australia's only international prize for peace, the Sydney Peace Prize
Sydney Peace Prize
The Sydney Peace Prize is awarded by the Sydney Peace Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation associated with the University of Sydney. The Sydney Peace Prize is the only International Peace Prize awarded in Australia....
. Past recipients include Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi economist and founder of the Grameen Bank, an institution that provides microcredit to help its clients establish creditworthiness and financial self-sufficiency. In 2006 Yunus and Grameen received the Nobel Peace Prize...
, Xanana Gusmão
Xanana Gusmão
Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão GCL is a former militant who was the first President of East Timor, serving from May 2002 to May 2007...
, Mary Robinson
Mary Robinson
Mary Therese Winifred Robinson served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister, campaigner and member of the Irish Senate...
, Hanan Ashrawi
Hanan Ashrawi
Hanan Daoud Khalil Ashrawi is a Palestinian legislator, activist, and scholar. She was a protégé and later colleague and close friend of Edward Said. Ashrawi was an important leader during the First Intifada, served as the official spokesperson for the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East...
, Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays...
, Hans Blix
Hans Blix
is a Swedish diplomat and politician for the Liberal People's Party. He was Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs . Blix was also the head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from March 2000 to June 2003, when he was succeeded by Dimitris Perrikos...
, Irene Khan
Irene Khan
Irene Zubaida Khan is a Bangladeshi human rights activist. She was the seventh Secretary General of Amnesty International until her resignation on 31 December 2009. She was appointed as a member of the Charity Commission of England and Wales on 1 January 2010 but resigned after a controversy over...
and Patrick Dodson
Patrick Dodson
Patrick Dodson is a Yawuru man from Broome, Western Australia, he is a former Chairman of the "Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation", a former Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and former Roman Catholic priest. He was the winner of the 2008 Sydney Peace Prize...
.
In 2009 Kostakidis served on the National Human Rights Consultation Committee chaired by Frank Brennan. The Committee inquired into the adequacy of the protection and promotion of human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
in Australia, holding consultations in metropolitan, rural and remote areas across the country and receiving over 35,000 written submissions. They recommended a raft of measures, the most contentious of which was a Human Rights Act
Human Rights Act
A human rights act is a statute that sets out individual rights and freedoms under the law. Many jurisdictions have bills of rights enshrined into law and called the "Human Rights Act". This naming convention is commonly used in Commonwealth nations...
. Human rights education was the measure that had the greatest support of those that took part in the consultation, but the overwhemling majority supported human rights legislation. The four member Committee also included Mick Palmer
Mick Palmer
Michael James "Mick" Palmer is a former Australian politician. He was a Country Liberal Party member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1983 to 2001, representing Leanyer until 1987 and Karama thereafter.-References:...
and Tammy Williams
Tammy Williams
Tammy Williams, is an American softball player who plays for the USA national softball team. She is Northwestern's softball team's all-time home run leader. Her natural position is shortstop.- College :...
.
From 1997 till 2003 she served on the Advertising Standards Board; in 1993 she was appointed by then Prime Minister Paul Keating
Paul Keating
Paul John Keating was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1991 to 1996. Keating was elected as the federal Labor member for Blaxland in 1969 and came to prominence as the reformist treasurer of the Hawke Labor government, which came to power at the 1983 election...
to Republican Advisory Committee chaired by Malcolm Turbull; in the early nineties she also served on the Council for the Order of Australia and in 1992 was a founding member of the James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
Foundation Board along with Ed Campion and Don Anderson. She has also been an active member of the Kazantzaki society.
Kostakidis has also served as an Ambassador for Beyond Blue and was also a member of the Drug and Alcohol Council, the Breast Cancer Council Advisory Committee and the Constitutional Centenary Foundation.
Early life and career
She was born in ThessalonikiThessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and migrated to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
with her family two years later. Kostakidis attended Fort Street Girls' High School
Fort Street High School
Fort Street High School is a co-educational, academically selective, public high school currently located at Petersham, an inner western suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
, and the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
, where she studied Modern Greek
Modern Greek
Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...
, Philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
. She was also a founding member and first President of the University's Greek Society. She went on to complete a Diploma of Education
Diploma of Education
The Diploma of Education, often abbreviated to DipEd or GradDipEd, is a postgraduate qualification offered in many Commonwealth countries including Australia, Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom...
in order to prepare for a career as a teacher. Kostakidis won a post-graduate scholarship to study at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki is the largest Greek university, and the largest university in the Balkans. It was named after the philosopher Aristotle, who was born in Stageira, Chalcidice, about 55 km east of Thessaloniki, in Central Macedonia...
in Greece.
Before joining SBS, Kostakidis worked as a tutor at the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
, as a research officer for the Departments of Health and Youth and Community Services in New South Wales and as a court interpreter and a translations editor. She once worked for ABC
ABC Radio and Regional Content
ABC Radio and Regional Content is the division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for radio output and regional content.-Origins:...
Radio news. During the assignment as an interpreter on the socalled Greek Conspiracy Case in the late 1970s, she organised a conversion course for Greek interpreters at the NSW Ethnic Affairs Commission in conjunction with Sydney University Modern Greek lecturer Dr Alfred Vincent, to facilitate a conversion from the formal katharevousa to demotic or vernacular Greek so that the defendants in the case would be able to understand the language being used.
Acting
Kostakidis acted in a children's television series called Five Times DizzyFive Times Dizzy
Five Times Dizzy is a children's novel by Australian author Nadia Wheatley It was first published in 1982. In 1986 it became an Australian children's television series. The book is about the comedy and drama of a Greek Australian family in a multi-cultural neighbourhood of inner-city Sydney...
in 1986 with Rebekah Elmaloglou
Rebekah Elmaloglou
Rebekah Elmaloglou is an Australian actress who is best known for portraying the role of Sophie Simpson on the long-running Australian soap opera Home and Away from 1989 to 1993 and again on a recurring basis from 2002 to 2005...
. She has also appeared in the movies Jindabyne
Jindabyne (film)
Jindabyne is a 2006 Australian drama film by director Ray Lawrence and starring an ensemble cast including Gabriel Byrne, Laura Linney, Deborra-Lee Furness and John Howard. Jindabyne was filmed entirely on location in and around the town of the same name: Jindabyne, New South Wales, situated next...
and Look Both Ways
Look Both Ways
Look Both Ways is a 2005 Australian independent film, written and directed by Sarah Watt, starring an ensemble cast, which was released on 18 August 2005. The film was supported by the Adelaide Film Festival fund and opened the 2005 festival. It won four AFI Awards, including Best Film and Best...
as a newsreader.
SBS
Kostakidis joined SBS as part of the original management team in September 1980 and worked to set up the SubtitlingSubtitle (captioning)
Subtitles are textual versions of the dialog in films and television programs, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. They can either be a form of written translation of a dialog in a foreign language, or a written rendering of the dialog in the same language, with or without added...
Unit. She became Director of Programme Preparation where she was involved in developing policies of censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
and classification
Motion picture rating system
A motion picture rating system is designated to classify films with regard to suitability for audiences in terms of issues such as sex, violence, substance abuse, profanity, impudence or other types of mature content...
.
She previously co-hosted the main SBS World News
SBS World News
World News Australia is the news service of the Special Broadcasting Service. Its flagship nightly bulletin is broadcast at on SBS One with additional weeknight 'late' bulletins at on SBS One...
at weekdays with Stan Grant.
Walk-out and legal action
On 21 August 2007 it was reported that Kostakidis had stormed out of the newsroom a week and a half earlier, furious at changes to the news bulletin. Although SBS said she was ill and taking leave, it was reported she had concluded her role as co-host due to differences in opinion over the increasingly commercial direction SBS was taking since the 2003 arrival of former New Zealand TV boss Shaun BrownShaun Brown
Shaun Brown is the former Managing Director of the Special Broadcasting Service in Australia. He was appointed to the position on 14 February 2006 for four years. In 2008, the SBS Board extended his contract until July 2011. During his time at SBS, the broadcaster's ratings share has risen to 6.2...
.
On 5 October 2007 Kostakidis lodged a statement of claim in the Federal Court of Australia
Federal Court of Australia
The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court of record which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law , along with some summary criminal matters. Cases are heard at first instance by single Judges...
, alleging a breach of contract and contravention of the Trade Practices Act 1975 on the part of SBS, citing alleged bullying by fellow presenter Stan Grant. Kostakidis secured the services of a prominent Melbourne lawyer, Julian Burnside
Julian Burnside
Julian William Kennedy Burnside AO QC is an Australian barrister, human rights and refugee advocate, and author. He is known for his staunch opposition to the mandatory detention of asylum seekers, and has provided legal counsel in a wide array of high-profile cases...
QC
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
and was expected to argue that her contract stated she would be the primary presenter of the programme, and that she would be able to exercise some editorial control.
The court action was later discontinued, and on 23 November 2007 Kostakidis reportedly reached an "amicable settlement" with SBS. The financial details of the settlement have not been disclosed.
Community
Kostakidis is active in the community and has a long standing interest in social justice issues. She is a member of the Drug and Alcohol Council, the Order of AustraliaOrder of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
Honours committee, the Sydney Olympic Cultural Organising Committee and was a member of the Breast Cancer Council Advisory Committee. She was appointed as a member to the Constitutional Centenary Foundation and to the Republic Advisory Committee. In August 1997 she was appointed to the Advertising Standards Board.