by guest contributor Dimitrios Machairidis
Photo credit: Kon Vatskalis
“I came to Darwin in 1993 with a young family and my plans were to be in Darwin for 2-3 years before returning to Perth. This is my twenty-fourth year in Darwin, but this is not my first campaign. Prior to this, I stood for elections for the Western Australian Parliament and I served as a Parliamentarian for fourteen years and as a Minister for eleven years. The present campaign was ugly, personal and with lots of “fake news” through the social media; but I enjoyed it. What was a big lesson for me is the power of the social media and the change in political campaigning. Any politician who ignores the social media does so at his or her own risk!” says Kon Vatskalis, the newly elected mayor of Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory of Australia.
Kon Vatskalis
Kon Vatskalis, alias King Kon for his adversaries and his fellow citizens in Darwin, is the typical example of a successful Greek immigrant. Born in 1957 in the Greek Island of Cephalonia in the Ionian Sea, he was raised in Athens, Greece where he graduated with a diploma in Public Health Administration. As a student he galvanized his strong personality through his experiences during the turbulent years of the dictatorship and the transition to democracy. “I have very fond memories of my time in Athens, the fight for democracy, the anti-King rallies, and the excitement of a new democratic Greece. I took my first political lesson in Athens in 1974. Then in 1975, as a student, I was involved in the student elections and was elected student representative. Those were great days.”
Linda Cotton and Kon Vatskalis
At the age of 27 Kon Vatskalis met Linda Cotton, an Australian lawyer working in London, who came to Athens for her summer holidays. The romance had a happy outcome some months later in London where Kon and Linda got married. Debating where they would settle, they decided to move to Perth, in Western Australia. In his new hometown, Kon got his University degree in Environmental Health and his post graduate degree in Environment Science and Public Sector Management. It was in 1983. But his happiness was short-lived. In 1988 Linda died from Cystic Fibrosis complications, leaving him with two children, Alexander and Michael. Five years later, in 1993, Kon, with his second wife Aihong, a Chinese-born Australian, and their three children, Alexander, Michael and newborn Kevin moved to Darwin temporarily. The Vatskalis family never left the northern city of Australia. Eight years later, in 1993, Kon was elected Member of Parliament of the Northern Territory, until 2014, when he decided to quit politics and return to normal life as he says. He started working at the Leukemia Institute as the Regional Manager. Nevertheless, once in politics, never out of politics. After a trip with his wife Aihong to his homeland to meet his parents and sister, Kon Vatskalis decided to run for Mayor of Darwin. Tuesday, 5th of September, he was sworn in as Mayor of Darwin.
Kon and Aihong
“I have seen our city in good and in bad times and now this a bad period. The City council had not provided any leadership or solutions. Instead they kept going around in circles, with lots of talk but no action. I had many people, both business people and citizens coming to me and asking me to stand for Mayor. This started last year and at the end I thought that I would stand because I loved this place and I wanted to see Darwin at its best again. And this is what I intend doing! I am the first ever Greek-born Mayor in Darwin and this is a great indication of how successful multiculturalism is in our City. It is a great boost to the idea that people here have the same opportunities as the Australian-born people as long as they are prepared to stand up and be counted. In addition, our Greek Australian citizens here consider themselves greatly honoured, as the City Of Darwin and the City of Kalymnos, the tiny Greek Island at the Aegean Sea, are sister cities,” says Vatskalis.
Kon with his three sons Alexander. Kevin and Michael
King Kon, the new elected Mayor of Darwin, is very determined concerning the future of his city. “Certainly, there are urgent issues we are facing in Darwin; we have to address them as a matter of urgency. We need to revitalize the CBD, the Central Business District of Darwin. Nowadays, people shop on the internet and everything is delivered at home and most shops are in air-conditioned shopping malls with free parking, outside the CBD. On the other hand, in the CBD people have to find parking, pay for it and walk from shop to shop. We need to change shopping patterns in order to face this kind of competition. We have to deal with parking issues as there are people who are not able to walk too far and people with disabilities who need an easy access to the shops. People come to CBD if they need something special or if they want to visit the big department stores.”
With his father in Greece
Contemporary European and US cities face problems such as social decentralization, marginalized neighborhoods, street insecurity, immigration, rising of the extreme right. Hollywood on the Potomac asks if Australian cities like Darwin face the same problems.
With his parents in Greece
“Yes and no: We do not have the issue with migrants arriving by boat but we face a significant problem with homeless people. Darwin is also lucky not to have the problem of ghetto neighborhoods but we still need to ensure that this does not happen. However public safety, alcohol-related crime, anti-social behavior and other similar issues are problems we are facing increasingly. In addition, we have a problem with extreme right ideologies (anti-immigrant, populism, anti-everything), but it is currently contained. We have to address some of these issues before they explode. However, this is not a Council issue only, but an issue of the State and Federal government as well, so we have to work together to curb this growth,” explains Kon.
The new Mayor of Darwin
At the moment while other countries are shutting down their gates to immigrants, Kon Vatskalis, the Greek-born new Mayor of Darwin and his Chinese-born wife Aihong are the best examples of the multicultural world we are living in. “Since I moved to Australia I have not stopped visiting Greece as often as I can, as my parents and sister are living there. Today as my wife’s mother in China is very old, we try to travel to both Greece and China as often as possible,” concludes King Kon.
